This was a little bit of a struggle for me to get through. I enjoy T.C. Boyle books but this one is dark - environmental destruction as a result of global warming and the greenhouse effect, the climate has changed, and, accordingly, biodiversity is a thing of the past. Many animal species are extinct, etc. It was a beautifully written but depressing book. It is the story of Tyrone Tierwater, a former environmentalist who is now living on a rock stars estate and taking care of endangered animal close to extinction, who is as gloomy as the world he lives in.

Not quite as good (or nearly as subtle) as The Tortilla Curtain, "AFOTE" stills scores high as a caustic and often hilarious read, with a little earth musing thrown in for good measure.

The tone is drenched in a kind of cranked-up sarcasm and all of the characters are fair game. Some readers might find all the snide asides distracting, to be sure, but I thoroughly enjoyed the cutting humor in this one.

Smart and funny, what else do you want?

08 mold & rats
28 nighttime woods
47 coffee
57 dog-stinking couch
80 incinerated metal
81 woodsmoke & body heat
—-simmering pots of chili
—-burned-dust odor of the slide projector
97 baking cookies {fragrant, fecund, seductive}
123 chlorophyll & wildflowers
153 sauna {clean & astringent}
156 burnt bread & mouse urine
—-sweet chemical scent of kerosene lanterns
191 death & decay
195 smell of rain on the air
226 clean-burning campfire & tomato sauce
228 curdled milk on damp ground
256 ocean breeze {sea wrack & clams}
302 mineral springs & fruit fat with the sun
316 reek of caged animals
—-sweet cherry perfume of pipe tobacco
—-beer nuts or salt & vinegar chips
323 marijuana-scented past
329 deep-fryer

A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle ���

A Retro Review

This novel feels eerily relevant even though it was published in 2000. Boyle tragic-comic novel imagines the world in 2025 – one of perpetual Climate Chaos, Biblical deluges, mass extinctions, resource stress, and an endemic breakdown of civilisation. Yet despite this bleak (and all too plausible) scenario, Boyle somehow manages to import some black humour into the situation. The central protagonist is the colourfully named Tyrone O’Shaughnessey Tierwater (mirroring the author’s own Celtic nomenclature), a septuagenarian environmental activist turned glorified zoo keeper for a Mick Jagger-esque super-rich rock star, who has a wish to preserve the unloved species of the planet – the hyenas and other scavengers – within the compounds of his West Coast estate. We find Tierwater drolefully eking out his autumnal years, obsessed with his failing body and lack of sex life, when the arrival of his ex, the deadliest of species, Andrea – a formidable, and still attractive powerhouse – and an annoying tag along, April Wind, who wishes to write the story of Tierwater’s daughter, Sierra: a heroine of the protest movement. The narrative bifurcates at this point – between the dramatic present, told in first person, and the vivid flashbacks, related in close third person. The vignettes from the more reckless, seemingly resource plentiful past, provide an ironic counterpoint; and the accounts of Tierwater’s increasingly reckless direct actions offer a poignant thumb-in-the-dyke to the consequences of a world past tipping point, where the floodwaters rise and no Noah is going to save the animals. The monkeywrenching is comically related, and Boyle’s book consciously picks up the baton of Edward Abbey’s 70’s classic, The Monkey Wrench Gang – updating it with millennial sensibilities. Boyle’s book is filled with brilliantly rendered characters and a vividly-realised, convincingly researched world. Even in the chaotic cascade of it all, one still comes away with a crazy sense of hope, but one tempered by the reality checks of the severity of what we face, and the fallibility of those who must deal with it: the Augean Stables of it all. Time to get out the shovels.

Kevan Manwaring

I have read and enjoyed much of T.C. Boyle's work, but this novel is one of his lesser accomplishments. I was nearly halfway through the book before the plot really started to take off, and the protagonist never really managed to grab me. While I do strongly believe that global climate change is real, that human activity is the cause, and that we need to take drastic action to curtail the damage, his vision of a future total environmental collapse seems rather shrill. I strongly recommend most of Boyle's fiction, I would not recommend this one. For a better work of his, try "The Road to Wellville" or "The Inner Circle."

T.C. Boyle's writing style and character development is very meh - book was moderately interesting. I'm writing this 6 months later and I can't even remember what the story was about other than a politically active protesting-type family, and their daughter died protesting the cutting down of a tree.

While it drags a bit at times, the story is still an enjoyable (albeit depressing) tale of what happens to people as the world collapses around them. Remarkable that it was written in 2000, it feels like it could have come out today.

Wenn ich hier so die anderen Bewertungen lese, frage ich mich, ob ihr das Buch überhaupt gelesen habt??
Mal ernsthaft, ich habe in meinem ganzen Leben noch nie ein so schlechtes Buch gelesen.
Dieses Buch zu lesen fühlt sich an, als wollte man sein Auto mit einem Wattestäbchen putzen. Am Anfang vielleicht noch ganz nett und witzig, aber je weiter man kommt, desto mehr wird es einfach nur zur Qual.
Dieses Buch war die absolute Hölle.

Hier mal ein kleiner Auszug aus dem Buch, damit jeder selbst entscheiden kann:
"Diesen Augenblick sucht sich Andrea aus, um aus dem Schlafzimmer zu kommen. Haare im Gesicht, verschlafener Blick, die Beine nackt bis in die Haarwurzeln. Und es sind gute Beine, denn die verliert eine schöne Frau als letztes; kaum Zellolites und keine nennenswerte Krampfadern. Sie trägt eins von meinen Hemden, wie ich sehe,und darunter nichts als das, womit sie geboren wurde, oder wozu sie sich entwickelt hat. Ich folge Chuys Blick auf das schwarze Hemd und erstellte weit unten, wo sie die letzten beiden Knöpfe offen gelassen hat. Ich sehe ihr Schamhaar und es ist weiß, weiß wie ein Schneehuhn (auch schon ausgestorben), und dann starren wir beide auf ihr pechschwarz gefärbtes Kopfhaar und ich muss es zugeben, es ist mir peinlich, und ehe ich noch recht nachdenken kann, gehe ich auf sie zu und Knöpfe das Hemd zu, wie ein verliebter Ehemann, oder vielleicht ein liebestoller Hund. Einer mit Mundgeruch und Reude, der aufs geprügelt werden auch noch steht."

Wer sich jetzt denkt "naja, so schlimm ist das doch gar nicht", der soll die Stelle einfach zehnmal hintereinander lesen, dann erst bekommt man nämlich ein Gefühl dafür wie eintönig das Buch geschrieben ist.

Für Leute, die Philosophie-Bücher zum Frühstück essen, mag "Ein Freund der Erde" vielleicht ganz unterhaltsam sein, für normal denkende Menschen ist es allerdings nicht lesbar.

10/10 würden es nicht weiterempfehlen (allerhöchstens an verhasste Familienmitglieder)

I think it's time to admit that I will never finish this book. I don't know what it is: at some point I read a Boyle story, perhaps in Harper's, and somehow developed the idea that I liked his writing and wanted to read more. This is my second Boyle novel, though, and I just can't be bothered to finish it, so maybe I like it less than I thought. There's not really even anything wrong with it, I just find that I fundamentally don't care, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for a book.

DNF— 1 star.

I picked this book up from an old thrift store that had a $1 sale going on for their books, and while I have heard of T.C. Boyles, I have never read one of his books and decided to give this one a try. I was hooked from the first couple of pages, but then I didn’t even make it through the prologue.

My biggest issue with this book was the protagonist; I could not stand his narration and his perception of all the women in his life, especially with Andrea. I mean, the supposed love of your life hits you up for the first time in, like, decades, and the only thing you’re worried about is how her boobs still fit around her shirt(s)? This went for like a page or two, and I couldn’t be bothered to care how their meet-up went after this point. I figured she would only be reduced to a flat female character because of her looks and the protagonist’s sexualization of her.

Once books hit a “male-gaze” point of narration like this, it’s hard for me to continue reading and turns me off from the book. Even so, the plot could not keep me entertained to stick it out despite this.

I hope to pick up a different book by T.C. and give him a second chance, but I will not be picking up this book again to finish.

I love all of Boyle's novels. This one is dark, funny, kind of post apocalyptic and hits home when reading in 2024 being that one of the storylines is in 2026 which is nearly 30 years after this novel was written. A lot of truth in Boyle's predictions as well as keen observation into human nature both good and bad.

This is just the most wonderful satirical but not fierce, more gently humourous, book about the state of the world and eco warriors in the 1980's juxtaposed with a dystopian time in the future 2025/6 when climate change has taken hold.
Fantastic host of characters, the most moving and beautiful one being Sierra........Ty's Idealist and almost flawless daughter.
Loved it