A Friend of the Earth

TC Boyle writes about way-out-there characters, and *A Friend of the Earth* is no exception. Ty, the main character, used to be a member of an eco-terrorism group like Earth First! (called here, Earth Forever!) before events in his own life changed him and the environment collapsed. One thing that I really enjoy about TC Boyle's work in general and *A Friend of the Earth* in particular is the way Boyle contemplates time. Here, the book alternates chapters between Ty's life as a young father and then eco-terrorist in the 1980s and 1990s and events in the eco-ravaged world when Ty is a young-old person in 2025. In the intervening three decades, Ty has changed dramatically as a human being (though we can see the roots of his changes) and the world changes. Only 25 years ago, Reagan had just begun his presidency, Germany was two countries with a wall between them, and the biggest threat to our lives was the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, and enough nukes pointed at us to destroy the world 1000 times over. In 1990, 16 years ago, Clinton was in his first term, his opinion was that our greatest challenge in America was race relations, the Soviet Union was in shambles, and Berlin Wall rubble was being sold by mail order, because there was no Ebay. Five years ago, in July, 2001, everybody was getting rich on internet stocks, housing prices were stagnant, people were still arguing about hanging and dimpled chads, and we had two blissful months of navel-gazing left before we the public started worrying about Osama bin Ladan, radical Islamists, burkas, rape rooms, WMDs, and Middle Eastern wars. Time changes things. Time changes people. Boyle understands that better than most other writers and uses it in his novels. In Boyle's book, Ty changes dramatically over the intervening years between the two time periods that the book examines. One of the major questions that Boyle explores and uses as a tension device is why Ty changed so much and what Sierra's (his daughter) fate was. By using these, Boyle has written a tightly woven, entertaining, tense book that, while it offers no pretty assurances or head-patting, does hold one's interest to the bitter end. TK Kenyon Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

While it's true that the protagonist of this book is an eco-terrorist, he is also a father and husband and this is a novel primarily concerned with reconciling family life with personal responsibility to create a life that makes some kind of sense. In this Ty Tierwater is a self professed failure and so I don't believe Boyle intended this as a "message" novel. While Boyle's research adds immeasurably to the appeal of the story interpreting it exclusively through the lens of eco-politics is a mistake that will rob one of its considerable pleasures. (And to measure it by the conventions of science fiction is beside the point entirely.) So why should you read this book? Because the sentences burst with flavor in your mouth. Also because it's a wonderfully crafted novel. The first person narration is convincing to the point that I completely identified with Ty even as I came to realize he was in many ways a self destructive crank likely to do as much harm as good to those around him. The book's time structure -- jumping from past to present -- is an effective technique for helping the reader trace evolving relationships (especially between Ty, wife Andrea, and daughter Sierra) and understand the impact of decisions over time. And finally, Ty tells his story with passion and intelligence in spite of an enroaching emotional exhaustion that matches the degradation fo the biosphere (a terrific act of authorial slight of hand, btw.) Ecopolitics and craft aside, when you come right down to it the reason to read "A Friend of the Earth," is because Boyle creates an unforgettable character in Ty Tierwater. Love him or hate him, you won't forget him...or this book.

I've only read this book and East is East by the author, but I have to say that unlike many reviewers, I thought it was great. I liked it better then East is East (which I also liked).Depressing? Yes, but hey if this book depresses you there's still time do something about it. The writing was great and the characters (in all of their imperfection) have real staying power. Highly recommended.

I can only guess as to Mr. Boyle's intent in this book, but I came away with the feeling that it pays great homage to Ed Abbey. The Monkey Wrench Gang fortold of Earth First! and the like; and then near his death, Abbey wrote Hayduke Lives in which you can see the beginnings of his outrage at where things had gone nad his seeming displeasure with where things were going with our planet. Mr. Boyle now takes it one step further with "A Friend of the Earth." Told in two time frames - one essentially the present with a group much like Earth First! called Earth Forever!; and the other set in the near future of 2025 where we meet Ty Tierwater retired eco-warrior at 75 when his life comes back around full circle and we learn of his daughter, who martyred herself for the trees. Ty tells of the now where Super El Nino-like weather is ravaging the planet and much of the wildlife has gone extinct. He also tells of the events of his life in the 1990s that led him to be a warrior for the environment and eventually to where he is in the here and now... struggling to save the "ugly animals," as his employer Mac - a Rich Rock Star - puts it, before they are all gone. The story is set in motion when Ty's ex-wife resurfaces in his life seeking to start anew their efforts to save the planet - and ourselves - from man. >>>>>>><<<<<<< <br /> <br />A Guide to my Rating System: <br /> <br />1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper. <br />2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead. <br />3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted. <br />4 stars = Good book, but not life altering. <br />5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

Boyle's boisterous, blackly comic view of the near future satirizes nearly everyone and everything in a story about love and the struggle for survival in a collapsing Eco-system.Narrator and protagonist Ty Tierwater is 75 in 2025. An artificial kidney makes him one of the "young old" facing a long, slow decline in a California where months of violent storms alternate with months of baking heat. A former radical environmentalist, he now runs a menagerie of endangered species for a pop star, a reservoir for zoo-cloning in a world where mammals - save burgeoning populations of rats and humans, are rapidly going extinct. Into this bleak, resigned existence comes a blast from the past - his ex-wife Andrea, a former star of the environmental movement, out of his life for 20 years."I'm out feeding the hyena her kibble and chicken backs and doing what I can to clean up after the latest storm, when the call comes through.... there are trees down everywhere and the muck is tugging at my gum boots like a greedy sucking mouth, a mouth that's going to pull me all the way down eventually, but not yet."They celebrate their reunion with the last can of extinct Alaskan crab. But Andrea, still sexy at 67, has an agenda. She wants Ty to help put a book together on his martyred daughter, Sierra. The memories flood back, beginning with the 1989 fiasco which introduced 13-year-old Sierra to radical environmentalism - the time he and Andrea and Sierra plunged their feet into wet cement at the top of a logging road to protest the cutting of old growth forests.The story alternates between third person accounts of love and strife and frustration in the late 20th century and Ty's present-tense 2025 narration of shoring up against imminent collapse. This near-future narration is manic. Sentences tumble and run, the language flows vivid and tactile, the world impinges urgently and viciously on daily life.The past emerges in a more conventional, anecdotal style. Bringing up Sierra, making his marriage work, miring himself deeper in a movement not really his own. Ty's remembrance of his life is anything but heroic. Ty came to environmentalism through his sexual attraction to Andrea. Lonely, his beloved first wife dead of a bee sting (all his loved ones, it seems, are felled by nature) Ty adopted Andrea's causes as his own. But when things go wrong, anger, helplessness, and desire for revenge fuel his increasingly radical actions. Clueless Ty, trying to make his mark in the world, longs to be a strong father, a good husband, a principled man, but anger and boredom and opportunistic, scheming Andrea, goad him.Meanwhile, Sierra has the makings of a true idealist. As a child she starved herself for days rather than eat the meat her father placed in front of her. Energized by her father's predicaments, she stops wearing make-up (animal testing), becomes a vegan and wholly embraces non-violent activism, becoming, literally, a tree hugger.In Ty's day environmentalism was a passion fo