|
|
Article: Boyle's excitable 'Friend' warns of major ecological disasters to come.(Arts and Lifestyle)
- Article from:
- The Boston Herald
- Article date:
- August 31, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Boston Herald. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
"A Friend of the Earth" by T. C. Boyle (Viking, $24.95)
The schoolmaster in you will want to keep T.C. Boyle after class to lecture him on the rules of writing. Because, in "A Friend of the Earth," an ambitious, idiosyncratic and very memorable novel, Boyle breaks all the Strunk and White strictures, achieving in the process the literary equivalent of hyperventilating.
The very name of the main character, Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater, resounds with syllabic excess, an overmuchness Boyle carries over into "Ty's" life, loves and especially his losses.
In many ways this is a novel about loss - the loss of youth, idealism, our richly variegated ...