Wild Child: and Other Stories - Hardcover

Boyle, T.C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670021423 ISBN 13: 9780670021420

Publisher: Viking, 2010

Synopsis

A superb new collection from "a writer who can take you anywhere" (The New York Times)

In the title story of this rich new collection, T.C. Boyle has created so vivid and original a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, that it becomes not just new but definitive: yes, this is how it must have been. The tale is by turns magical and moving, a powerful investigation of what it means to be human.

There is perhaps no one better than T.C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying his readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance. The fourteen stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. Nature is the dominant player in many of these stories, whether in the form of the catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity ("La Conchita") or the wind-driven fires that howl through a high California canyon ("Ash Monday"). Other tales range from the drama of a man who spins Homeric lies in order to stop going to work, to that of a young woman who must babysit for a $250,000 cloned Afghan and the sad comedy of a child born to Mexican street vendors who is unable to feel pain.

Brilliant, incisive, and always entertaining, Boyle's short stories showcase the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made him one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

About this title

About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of eleven novels, including World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and The Inner Circle. His most recent story collections are Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories.

From AudioFile

Superlative author T.C. Boyle is also an excellent reader of his own work. His voice is purely American West--flat-voweled , pleasantly modulated, with a hint of a baritone growl. He reads without vocal flourish, but with an intensity that captures the listener and won't let go. It's pell-mell without being rushed; urgent but not desperate; entirely articulate. And such stories. The fate of a boy who cannot feel pain; the way in which a California mudslide can save a soul; a girl who may or may not lie for her father. Stories that feel simultaneously quotidian and mythic. My only quibble is that the pauses between stories hardly leave time for a breath (or a reflection). No matter. This is a mesmerizing audiobook experience. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0670021423
• ISBN 13: 9780670021420
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320