TC Boyle “Talks” to Me

Well, not literally. OK, he did once, which I’ll get to in a few paragraphs. But I’m really enjoying his latest novel, “Talk Talk.” True to form, with the theme of this one – the consequences of identity theft - he’s thrown a bull’s-eye through the current zeitgeist of American culture. Boyle’s writing has impressed me on several fronts over the years. For one, despite his meaty prose, zeal for obscure language and his one character per book (usually) who tends to hail from fictional Peterskill (in Westchester County, New York, where he was raised), one just don’t find the recurring themes that so many prolific novelists slip into as they get into that third, fourth, fifth tome. Every book is different. He seems comfortable moving from historical fiction (in my opinion, his best work) to contemporary, from female POV protagonists to male, to basing stories on unpopular or controversial figures (for instance, Dr. Alfred Kinsey in “The Inner Circle”) to taking the seemingly heart-of-gold bleeding hearts and showing the world their callous hypocrisy (eg the liberal in the gated community who accidentally runs over a Mexican migrant worker in “The Tortilla Curtain”). And his short stories are good, too. (He was the reason I subscribed to the New Yorker. Well, that, and for the cartoons.) One doesn’t often find a writer who is equally proficient at short and long fiction. Often, like Philip Roth or Norman Mailer, the novels are good but the shorts…well, somehow feel like they would have preferred to be longer. Like they are cramming too much real estate into a 10,000-word box. As a writer who wishes she had the same sort of versatility (I’m more comfortable with the long form; often my shorts read like launching pads for novels), I admire him for that talent.

In my opinion, his best novel is one of his earliest (and worth the search and the time if you can find it; not that I think awards mean a whole lot but it won the PEN/Faulkner award for 1988), titled “World’s End.” It’s set in Boyle’s native Westchester County in three different and volatile periods of American history: the very early colonial era, when New York’s Hudson Valley Dutch settlers were being usurped by the British; the 40’s, when Communism was reaching its fingers into the working class; and the era of the Vietnam “conflict.” It follows the same two families in each era. One family has always worked for the other. And off we go.. He also does an excellent job of developing empathy for the antagonists – the big bad, “suit” of the Vietnam era has this psychological problem called pica, when you are compelled to eat dirt. I’ve got to say I don’t think I’ve ever seen a literary character with this particular trait.

Another early novel (1988 or so) worth the search is “Water Music,” a fictionalized account of the travails of Mungo Park, the Scottish explorer. What I liked best was how he showed the protagonist’s conflict between the love waiting for him at home and the lure of his quest for Victoria Falls.

Among his recent work, “Drop City” had some interesting characters and situations (set in the Summer of Love days, the conflict when a hippie commune, evicted from their free and comfortable digs, moves to Alaska and has to exist side-by-side with the natives, who aren’t too happy they’ve arrived), but went on a bit too long.

And I expected more from “The Inner Circle.” Since he’s so good at resurrecting historical “villains,” (think “The Road to Wellville” – the book, not the godawful Matthew Broderick movie butchered out of it), I was eagerly awaiting this one. As always, I liked the writing. I liked the characters. I liked the setup. But something bothered me. A critic from (I think) People Magazine touched on it briefly and clumsily – that for a book about sex, it wasn’t very “sexy.” And I know (and Boyle knows) that this is the impression the book was supposed to leave – that in the microanalysis of Human Sexual Behavior, all the romance is drained clean out of it so all you’re left with is body parts and heart rates and respiration. This was meant to be portrayed in the mind of his young protagonist, Milk, who is tugged between his brand-new marriage to the girl of his dreams and his burgeoning career as a scientist. Being taken under Kinsey’s wing is intoxicating. But his wife (that bitch!) wants romance. So does Milk – but he’s fallen under Kinsey’s spell. Now this is the core of what really irked me. At heart Milk is romantic man, who in essence has fallen in love with Kinsey. Yet when Kinsey takes Milk into his bed (all in the name of science, of course), we get NOTHING from Boyle. To use the movie cliché, at the first embrace he pans up into the trees. And that pissed me off. As a reader, I felt cheated. And I felt that this was beneath him. Hey, if I’ve got to sweat out what’s going on my characters’ heads during the sex scenes, then he should have to as well. And I’m not even published.

But I recovered.

Fortunately, when I talked to Boyle, it was before I read “The Inner Circle.” He had done a reading at the former (sniff) Ariel Bookstore in nearby New Paltz, just when the book came out. I’d seen his book jacket picture, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person. He looked like the average punk poet you might see on Venice Beach (in fact, he now lives in California, teaches at USC). Black rubber bracelets, Chuck Taylor cons, black jeans, slogan t-shirt, mean little black shades tucked into the collar, multiple piercings on both ears. Hair sticking up in variegated Alpine peaks thanks to some product that is currently not allowed on airplanes.

Not exactly your average novelist.

And not your average reading, either. He’s said in interviews that that the public reading of literary fiction doesn’t have to be the dry and artless experience one has grown to expect, one which has lead readers to think literary fiction is probably good for them but one great big yawn. He throws a little performance into it.

And when the “performance” was done, I asked as many questions during the Q&A as his handlers would allow. Then I got on line to get my book signed. When he got to me, I said one of the things I like best about his writing is that he always sends me to the dictionary. He gave me the once over, cocked one eyebrow, smirked, then signed my book in Latin.

Show-off.

But so far, “Talk Talk” is redeeming him in my estimation. Just having the imagination and courage to employ a deaf protagonist is interesting enough to keep me reading.

This time, the villain is from Peterskill.

Can’t wait to see how it turns out.