When the Killing's Done: A Novel

T. Coraghessan Boyle

ISBN 10: 1441775242 ISBN 13: 9781441775245

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc., 2011

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Women comes an action-packed adventure about endangered animals and those who would protect them.

Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T. C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world. Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the islands' endangered native creatures from invasive species like rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues. Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, contemplate acts of sabotage, court danger, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself.

Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to relate the harrowing tale of Alma's grandmother, Beverly, who was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as well as the tragic story of Anise's mother, Rita, who in the late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz Island.

In dramatizing this collision between protectors of the environment and animal rights activists, Boyle is, in his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential questions of our time: Who has the right of possession of the land, the waters, the very lives of all the creatures who share this planet with us?

When the Killing's Done will offer no transparent answers, but like The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle's classic take on illegal immigration, it will touch you deeply and put you in a position to decide.

About this title

About the Author:

T. C. BOYLE received his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Iowa and has taught creative writing at the University of Southern California since 1977. His novels include World's End (winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction) and The Tortilla Curtain (winner of the 2007 Audie(tm) Award for Best Narration by the Author). His short fiction regularly appears in such major magazines as Harper's and the New Yorker. He lives with his family near Santa Barbara, California.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Boyle’s great subject is humankind’s blundering relationship with the rest of the living world. In his thirteenth novel, he transports us to California’s Galapagos, the surprisingly wild Northern Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. There a stormy, cliff-hanging tale of foolhardy and treacherous journeys unfolds, anchored to the tough women in two indomitable matriarchal lines. A 1946 pleasure cruise gone wrong shipwrecks Beverly on the island of Anacapa. Decades later, her ambitious biologist granddaughter, Alma, oversees the National Park Service’s hubristic efforts to rid Anacapa, and neighboring Santa Cruz Island, of invasive animal species in organized killing sprees. Dreadlocked businessman Dave LaJoy, a man of rage and aberrance, along with his lover, Anise, the last child raised on Santa Cruz, where her mother worked on a doomed sheep ranch, incites reckless protests with chain-reaction consequences. Incisive and caustically witty, Boyle is fluent in evolutionary biology and island biogeography, cognizant of the shared emotions of all sentient beings, in awe over nature’s crushing power, and, by turns, bemused and appalled by human perversity. Boyle brings all these powers and concerns to bear as he creates magnetic characters and high suspense, culminating in a piercing vision of our needy, confused, and destructive species thrashing about in the great web of life. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Famous for his avidly attended public appearances, Boyle has seen his readership multiply following the huge success of The Women (2009). --Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1441775242
• ISBN 13: 9781441775245
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 13