After the Plague: And Other Stories

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Book Overview

One of the acknowledged masters of the short story gives readers a gripping ride through narratives that shock, compel, and always entertain. Few authors in America write with such sheer love of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670030058
• ISBN13: 9780670030057
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Men-- And Women Acting Badly

I know many lovers of fiction who won't touch short stories. Their complaint usually is that the stories go nowhere and are little more than vignettes or character studies. To them I cannot recommend this volume enough. Mr. Boyle tells stories that grab you from the first sentence-- "They wore each other like a pair of socks"-- and do not let you go until the roller coaster ride is finished, some 20 pages or so later. The author has collected here 16 stories, most of which have been published previously in EQUIRE, GQ, GRANTA, THE NEW YORKER and PLAYBOY as well as collections of best short stories including The O. Henry Awards, an honor that is certainly apropos since this author is every bit as good at surprise endings as Mr. O. Henry, himself. ("She Wasn't Soft" and "After the Plague" are just two excellent examples.) Many of these stories are about men and women acting badly-- very badly. A young man throws his girl friend's unwanted newborn child into a dumpster, a young drug addict working at his physician brother's abortion clinic goes ballistic and starts shooting protestors, one of a handful of survivors of a global plague in a fit of jealously vandalizes another survivor's home. But Mr. Boyle also writes about the way some people react with gutsy courage to violence. An airline passsenger saves herself as well as everyone else on a plane by attacking an out-of-control fellow passenger who is trying to open the rear exit door of the plane by attacking him with the steel fork given with the awful flight food; and an elderly widow takes on a robber with a can of Mace, for example. Mr. Boyle has an endless reservoir of creativity. Who else writes stories about a tour of women from Los Angeles going to Alaska to meet eligible men? ("There were a hundred and seven of them, of all ages, shapes and sizes, from twenty-five- and thirty-year-olds in dresses that looked like they were made of Saran Wrap to a couple of big-beamed older types in pantsuits who could have been somebody's mother--and I mean somebody grown, with a goatee beard and a job at McDonald's. . .") Or two wealthy single sisters, one who wears only black, the other only white, who live in a black and white house and hire only black or white workers, wearing only black and white clothes-- no brown-skinned people, that is, Mexicans need apply? Or a house full of young pretty women in an upscale neighborhood where voyeurs can go online and watch their goings-on twenty-four hours a day? Or an elderly couple where the husband suffers a stroke and his wife falls and breaks her hip as she searches for him? Although not for the fainthearted, these Molotov cocktails are as good a collection of stories as you will find.

Cure for Writer's Block!

Boyle is an even better writer of short stories than of novels. There is no "time delay" as you struggle to get used to a new protagonist and a new world; like Updike his sentences draw you right in and you're hooked. But Boyle doesn't, like some contemporaries, write a "slice of life" that's all language and no story! His stories have plot and often twists, including a likeable narrator who morphs into a killer before out eyes, a pair of teenage lovers who kill their baby, and the title story, set in a California following a devastating plague. But the point is always the insight Boyle demonstrates through his vivid, compassionate writing. Some of the stories are macabre and wickedly funny (Black and White Sisters, about a pair of eccentric women who have turned their whole world the color of old movies and spare no lengths to complete it; The Death of Cool about an aging tv producer), others are more poignant (Killing Babies, set in an abortion lab, Captured by the Indians, about a young grad student-wife struggling to come to terms with her husband and her future)-- all are inspiring. Boyle's writing somehow makes the idea of writing accessible. Like Fred Astaire, he makes it look easy. He makes you want to sit down at the keyboard! So it's a must not only for readers but for all writers, too.

Boyle Survives "Plague"

There is little doubt TC Boyle is among the finest American short story writers out there today. While Boyle has authored many notable and successful novels, his wonderfully unique and sardonic views of humanity seem to stay better afloat in the shorter form. As with his mammoth short story collection "TC Boyle Stories," these works are not for the conservative reader. In reading this latest collection, one needs no further evidence that Boyle is always thinking "outside the box." He gives readers a thrilling reading experience -- a true rarity in fiction these days!From a boyfriend's sadistically botched attempt to help out his girlfriend in a triathlon competition to a pair of senior citizens meeting a pitch-black humorous end in their backyard -- it is unlikely you have ever read anything like this before. Having attended a Boyle reading/book signing for this work in October 2001, the author admitted that works like "Friendly Skies" (about passenger "air rage") and the title story (a look at two surly survivors after Ebola wipes out much of the world as we know it) take on an unintentionally eerie spin in a post-September 11th world.For fans of the author, there is probably little need for any type of recommendation, but for the uninitiated "After The Plague and Other Stories" is certainly a worthwhile and entertaining introduction into the wild, and sometimes warped, world of TC Boyle.

No Quarantining Boyle's Plague

Taken as a whole, the sixteen stories in After the Plague go about their virulent work in two ways. First, there's the devastating attack on the body: Boyle's willingness to plunge deep into society's ever-festering issues, from abortion to violent crime. Next, there's the skewering assault on the brain: the author's sustained tour-de-force of technique, making each of his troubled protagonists seem more vivid than our own best friend, or worst enemy. The combination makes for informed storytelling that borders on extended prose-poetry. And it kills utterly.For "literary fiction" lovers looking for some strong poison, there's much to recommend by way of content in After the Plague. From an airplane carrying one passenger on the brink of "air rage" to the home of a bartender logged on to pornography, Boyle renders each of his contemporary settings with digital-sharp resolution - right down to the salty peanuts and explicit banner advertising. In these and other stories concerned with recent headlines, stories like "Killing Babies" and "The Love of My Life", Boyle always exposes the conflicted man or woman behind the sensationalistic misdeed. ("Another unwanted child in an overpopulated world?" muses one teenager in the latter story. "They should have given him a medal." You'll have to read it to discover what heroic act makes Jeremy so deserving.) Boyle often takes the tabloid as his starting point, only to create mature art that's the antithesis of schlock.But it's Boyle's craftsmanship, and specifically, his mastery of the close third person voice, that make After the Plague likely to outlive much of today's fiction. Consider this opening passage from "She Wasn't Soft", an account of one tri-athlete attempting to leap the hurdles of her competitors, her own body, and her indifferent, pot-smoking boyfriend. "She wasn't tender, she wasn't soft, she wasn't sweetly yielding or coquettish, and she was nobody's little woman and never would be. That had been her mother's role, and look at the sad sack of neuroses and alcoholic dysfunction she'd become."Note the "She", and not "I". But even as we meet Paula Turk through the perspective of a semi-detached narrator, we feel like we're getting a first-hand introduction. It's exhilarating to see a writer of so much political intelligence, so much stylistic exuberance, allow his less wise and less articulate characters "possess" him so fully on the page. Paula may not have the consummate vocabulary of Boyle. She probably doesn't possess the same gift for metaphor, or aptitude for prose rhythm. It's unlikely she'd describe herself this way. Only her author can do that, and while we're aware of Boyle's presence in every sly, subordinate clause, we're also intimately connected to the desperate ambition that is Paula Turk. Despite all his eloquence, Boyle is rarely swayed to speak *for* his characters. Rather, they almost always speak *through* him.Not every story is told from this perspective, and not all take

Boyle's Best Collection Yet

I have always been a big Boyle fan, and most of these stories have already appeared in the New Yorker, but I have to say: in my opinion this is his best collection. The stories are shocking, contemporary, playful, funny and tragic -- typical Boyle at his finest. From the weirdness of 'The Black and White Sisters,' a twisted and sexy story about eccentric twins who will only surround themselves, in food, clothes, and company, with the colors black & white, which is surreal and funny and sad and has metaphorical echoes of old TV and grim newspapers, to 'She Wasn't Soft,' or 'Termination Dust,' both of which are creepy, heartbreaking suspense stories which focus as grim character pieces, Boyle had me hooked from page one. If you like unforgettable characters, strong plot and contemporary issues, this is a must read. Plus it's funny. Five Stars! Bravo!