Tooth and Claw

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Book Overview

Since his first collection of stories, Descent of Man , appeared in 1979, T.C. Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. Among... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670034355
• ISBN13: 9780670034352
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Short story lover's gold mine

I can't believe it took me so long to discover Boyle. His prose is entertaining, even if by some chance the story doesn't grab you. There's a lot of variety here. And there's not a dud among them. "The Swift Passage of Animals" brings the mechanism of evolution into vivid focus for a man trying to impress his weekend date; "Jubilation" is black humor at a planned community in FL; "Chicxulub" intersperses facts about meteors hitting the earth with the story of a couple's ordeal upon hearing their daughter has been hit by a car; "Blinded by the Light" is set in Argentina where ranchers are confronted by the dire predictions of an ozone layer scientist. Compared to some of his earlier collections, this one is smooth and mature, but he hasn't lost the edge and talent for making the bizarre plausible.

dark humour plus deep turmoil

The sheer contrast of these stories made the collection creative and artistic. Most stories entailed animal behaviour vs. reasoning; pain/joy, love/hate, and reality/escapism. I was impressed by the mixture of dark humour, intricate details, and emotional turmoil that lies in these pages: the title fits perfectly, and one cannot help but consider that some of the stories are semi-autobiographical. Ideas for the stories are bizarre, brilliant, refreshing and sometimes finish with unexpected twists of fate. Despite each character's repeated dance with diverse forms of substance abuse, one feels empathy for him as he struggles for his identity even if he's as desperate and pathetic as they get. It was a film-noir of story-telling, and a most enjoyable read.

Halfway through

I have read half of the stories in the Tooth and Claw short story collection, and I have had my usual share of laughs and more. Many of the stories deal with people involved with substance abuse issues. The consequences, conflicts, and comraderie that result when people indulge and abuse substances are cleverly played out in fictional scenarios. TC Boyle's work is never cliche', never boring, and always flawless. What I enjoy the most is how the lives of quirky misfits make me laugh. I am not talking about making fun of these characters. I am talking about the way Boyle weaves the lives of those on the fringe of society into amusing vignettes of life.

Like sunshine on a cold winters day...............

A book worth savoring and rationing, each story speak's of the best and worst that life has to offer each character I can recognize in mind, body and spirit. Thank you Mr. Boyle for a fine book

"Nature, Red In Tooth And Claw"

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