Tooth and Claw [Kindle Edition]

If my memory serves me right, Tennyson in his long poem "In Memoriam" referred to nature as "red in tooth and claw." T. C. Boyle obviously takes a page from Lord Tennyson in his latest collection of short stories where nature at best is indifferent, at its worst, malevolent. Wind storms are so bad that the weather service's wind gauge was once torn from "its moorings and launched into eternity" ("Swept Away") and a "bird lady" probably was washed out to sea. Two individuals get lost in a blinding snowstorm in the Southern Sierras in "The Swift Passage of the Animals." The characters-- at least some of them-- in "Blinded by the Light" are obsessed with a hole in the ozone layer: "So the sky is falling. Or, to be more precise, the sky is emitting poisonous rays." In "Chicxulub" an asteroid collided with the earth "sixty-five million years ago: "The thing that disturbs me about Chicxulub, [the name of the asteroid or comet] aside from the fact that it erased the dinosaurs and wrought catastrophic and irreversible change, is the deeper impication that we, and all our works and worries and attachments, are so utterly inconsequential." Additionally, in several of these stories the characters must also deal with nature's animals: wind-driven falling cats in "Swept Away," man-eating alligators in "Jubilation," an African wild cat that the narrator wins in a bar bet-- coincidentally in a driving rain-- in the title story. Or what is even worse, at least one character ("Dogology") wants to become a dog.

Thirteen of these fourteen stories will open up your sinuses. The characters, many of whom would be described as losers-- but never dull losers-- step in front of the proverbial train and suffer the consequences-- a sleep-deprived man, a homeless man for the first time, a high school teacher who uses and deals drugs at night. Mr. Boyle is quite amazing at setting the tone for a twenty-page story in one sentence. Check out "Here Comes," for example: "He didn't know how it happened, exactly--lack of foresight on his part, lack of caring, planning, holding something back for a rainy day--but in rapid succession he lost his job, his girlfriend and the roof over his head, waking up on morning to find himself sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of the post office."

My favorite story is "Chicxulub" where parents, whose daughter is not home yet, get a late night telephone call-- every parent's worse nightmare-- that "there has been an accident." In a little over ten pages, Mr. Boyle tells a story so universal, so painful and so well-written that you almost forget you are reading fiction and hope with all your being that that child is safe. But isn't this what fine fiction should do?

"The Doubtfulness of Water: Madam Knight's Journey to New York, 1702"-- a story with a title that long had better have something going for it-- for me it didn't, went right over my head, or around it. I don't have the slightest idea what the writer wanted to say- which alone doesn't make a story bad-- I just found it dull; and there are too many other wonderful, satiric, funny and profound stories by this fine writer that I haven't read yet.

Mr. Boyle has to be one of our best short story writers.

Is there a more talented short fiction writer in America than T.C. Boyle? Probably not. Many of his considerable gifts and persisting preoccupations are on display in Tooth and Claw, his seventh published collection of stories.

Five of the fourteen stories are set in bars. They feature precariously-balanced young men being swept toward the realization that something has to give or change. Boyle shares this space with Richard Bausch, another fine short story writer. If Bausch's stories have the fiery burn of raw pulque, Boyle's go down like high grade tequila: the kick comes later. Given his storytelling skills, one suspects that Boyle could spin out guy-in-bar tales as effortlessly and endlessly as a spider can drop silk filaments from its abdomen.

His comic gifts are on display in Swept Away, a roistering tale of the affair between a visiting ornithologist and a local farmer on a bleak Scottish isle, and the satirical subset of those gifts is evident in Jubilation, which chronicles the natural disasters that befall a man trying to start a new life in a housing development built by a theme park company. Dogology, about a woman who wants to be one with the animal kingdom, and The Kind Assassin, about a drive-time DJ's attempt to set the record for going without sleep, show Boyle turning intriguing concepts into stories peopled by characters who engage our feelings.

Several of the stories revolve around nature. The Doubtfulness of Water takes us on an adventurous journey from Boston to New York in the year 1702. Tooth and Claw, a combo bar and animal story, gives us a lost young man trying to cope with a feral pet. In Blinded by the Light, a Patagonian rancher is afflicted by the visit of an environmental doomsayer obsessed by the ozone hole over the South Pole. In Boyle's fictional world there are two broad classes: those who know we're headed towards some sort of environmental catastrophe and those who are trying not to think about it.

Two of the stories could be prequels to Drop City, Boyle's novel about young people who head out west in the late sixties to join a hippie commune. All the Wrecks I've Crawled Out Of and Up Against the Wall are both narrated by young guys scrambling for purchase in the adult world. They're looking for answers in the emerging counterculture of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. These two stories deliver the strongest emotional punch in the collection because it feels like there's something more at stake than a verbal frolic. Boyle seems to be trying to nail down an American moment -late sixties/early seventies- in which he's emotionally as well as intellectually invested.

This collection shows yet again that Boyle is a brilliant stylist who moves nimbly over a broad swath of American terrain. If his jazzy riffs haven't yet achieved that higher synthesis, that reordering of our perceptions, which we ask of our greatest fiction writers, it's clear that he has the talent to get there.

As a fan of TC Boyle's novels and short stories, I was pleased to see that he stayed on course with this, his latest collection of short stories. Mr. Boyle has an uncanny talent for creating original characters and plots in his stories.

I liken each of his stories to a wonderful meal cooked by the hands of a professional chef. The first paragraphs of his stories, much like a carefully selected appetizer, will draw the reader in, allowing them to sample the foibles or eccentricities of the main characters and give them a tantalizing taste of the filling and ultimately satisfying course to come. Boyle picks his words carefully and -- like spices -- uses them to enhance but not overwhelm. The ending of the story comes quickly, like any good dessert should, finishing off the arc with a succulent twist or a thoroughly satisfying conclusion that will inevitably bring out a smile.

Boyle's stories are properly paced, much like a good meal is portioned to satisfy without stuffing. Each one can be read during a lunch break or before bed, and they are never drawn out or boring. Each story will satisfy the reader while tempting him or her to come back for more.

If you enjoy reading, then this book belongs on your shelf along with Boyle's other great works.