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Ein Freund der Erde
Wir schreiben das Jahr 2025: Der Treibhauseffekt hat voll zugeschlagen, im Loiretal wird nicht mehr Wein, sondern Reis angebaut, die meisten Säugetiere sind ausgestorben und das Essen ist auch nicht mehr das, was es einmal war. Ty Tierwater, militanter Umweltschützer, verbrachte mehr Zeit im Knast als in der freien Natur. Da taucht eines Tages seine zweite Frau Andrea mit einem ganz besonderen Anliegen auf...
355 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2000
119 people are currently reading
2247 people want to read
About the author
T. Coraghessan Boyle
172 books2,929 followersT. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twleve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 358 reviews
May 22, 2019
When I lived in Arizona in the late 1980s there was an environmental group called Earth First! that was creating a lot of excitement on campus. Edward Abbey was teaching at the University of Arizona and everyone was reading his book called The Monkey Wrench Gang. Earth First! advocated using some of the tactics that Abbey described in his book. All was fun and good until the FBI busted down Dave Foreman's (the most vocal leader of Earth First!)door in the middle of the night, with black helicopters circling, and hauled him away. The next few days there was many of us trying to remember who we knew that was part of the movement and determine our particular degree of separation as more and more people were arrested. The FBI effectively scared the crap out of anyone involved in the environmental movement in the Southwest.
Earth First logo
Imagine my pleasant surprise when the group that Ty Tierwater, our hero, was associated with is Earth Forever! Okay, obviously Boyle decided to change the name and move the base of operation to California, but he can't fool me. Ty is the most radical of the Earth Forever! members he sees the political struggle over the Earth as a war and that destructive Monkey Wrenching tactics is the only way to force the large lumber companies to back off. We first meet Ty in 2025 and all the most dire predictions for the Earth have come true. The places that are dry have become more barren and the places that were traditional wet zones have become flood zones. All of his activism accomplished nothing. Tierwater is now 75 years old and taking care of a small menagerie of exotic animals for a pop star. After several stints in jail for illegal activity this is about the only job a famous felon can find. He sums up his life through the workings of his bowels.
"My guts are rumbling: gas, that's what it is. If I lie absolutely still, it'll work through all the anfractuous turns and twists down there and find its inevitable way to the point of release. And what am I thinking? That's methane gas, a natural pollutant, same as you get from landfills, feedlots and termite mounds, and it persists in the atmosphere for ten years, one more fart's worth of global warming. I'm a mess and I know it. Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, enviroeco-capitalistico guilt. I can't even expel gas in peace. Of course, guilt itself is a luxury. In prison we didn't concern ourselves overmuch about environmental degradation or the rights of nature or anything else, for that matter. They penned us up like animals, and we shat and pissed and jerked off and blew hurricanes out our rectums, and if the world collapsed as a result, all the better, at least we'd be out."
Dave Foreman
The book flips back and forth between 1989-91 and 2025-26. We see the decisions that Ty makes trying to make a difference and the influence of his actions on the development of his daughter. Despite numerous incarcerations Ty is never rehabilitated. "Every prisoner told himself-I'll never do it again but Tierwater didn't believe it. Not for a minute. He knew now, with every yearning, hating , bitter and terminally bored fiber of his being, why prison didn't reform anybody. Penitentiary. What a joke. The only thing you were penitent for was getting caught. And the more time you did, the more you wanted to strike back at the sons of bitches and make them wince, make them hurt the way you did. That was rehabilitation for you."
Edward Abbey once tried to pick up my girlfriend at a book signing with ME standing RIGHT THERE. Horny bastard.
I wasn't sure how I felt about Ty Tierwater for most of the book, but as the novel progressed I had developed a grudging respect for him. He really did care, maybe too much to think clearly, but he was truly committed to saving the planet. Even as an old man, we still find him trying to do what he can to preserve a tiny part of the diversity of the planet. By the end of the novel he has found some solitude. "I've entered a new world. Or an old one, a world that exists only in the snapping tangle of neurons in my poor ratcheting brain...For the first time in a long time I feel something approaching optimism, or at least a decline in the gradient of pessimism." By 2026 Ty finds himself ultimately more concerned about finding peace for himself knowing the battle for the planet has been lost, yet hopeful, that a new planet will emerge with new creatures and maybe a better primary caretaker.
I most recently talked with Boyle at a signing in Wichita. I'm still mad at myself that I forgot to ask him about taking classes under Cheever.
It has been a long time since I've read T. C. Boyle and it won't be as long before I read the next Boyle. He is a smart, crafty writer with brimming intelligence on every page.
September 18, 2010
There is a story behind why I chose to review A Friend of the Earth. In 2001, I bought the novel and could not get past the first few pages. I tried again and again. No go. So I dropped it in a box to be forgotten but not trashed. Roughly a year later I was rummaging around for a book to read and pulled it out. What the hell, I thought. I'll give it another try. The planets had aligned, apparently (or more likely this time I was mentally receptive) and, as with all his previous books, I immediately fell in love with his writing and the journey. His imagination is wild, his wit caustic, and he knows how to mess with your mind to provoke laughter and thought in a neuron-explosive way. And I mean that in a good way, even when the subject matter is bleak, as with this apocalyptic romp. Also, this novel has a great closing line. My point is this: Art is subjective, true, but sometime when your mind tunes into the right frequency you hear the music and not static. T.C.B. is – among the living or dead – one of our greatest writers.
April 24, 2013
I really, really enjoyed this novel and can easily recommend it. You can check out the long version or stay here for a shorter one.
A Friend of the Earth is quite different from many environmentally- or eco-based novels I've read. While some of the normal dystopian scenarios are in place, and the author in his own way lets his readers know that there is little to no hope for the future, it also makes you laugh as Mr. Boyle puts irony ahead of heavy-handedness or preaching -- since, as the main character notes, it's much too late for that.
It's 2025, and Tyrone (Ty) Tierwater works as the caretaker of a private collection of animals. Ty, in his 70s, has a good gig working for a millionaire pop star who's been trying to save some of the last critically-endangered animals before they're gone for good. As a result of global warming and the collapse of the biosphere, these days, floods, rain, heat and nightmarish winds are the norm. Ty lives a simple life, taking care of the animals and then going out for the occasional drink of sake, but that all changes when one day, without warning, his ex-wife Andrea shows up with news that a writer is interested in penning the story of their daughter Sierra. But it's not the only reason she's there -- she has plans to restart Earth Forever!, the environmental-activism group they were part of in the past, "for the survivors." Andrea's return is what prompts the story of Ty's former days as a monkeywrenching member of the group, complete with berets, raised fists and acts of ecotage, at a time when "to be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of the people." As the narrative goes back in time, it reveals not only the motivations behind Ty's actions (which may not be quite what you'd expect), but also how eventually he came to sacrifice much more than he bargained for in the process of doing his part in saving the planet. It's a wonderful book, much less heavy-handed than I expected from its beginning.
One of the messages to be found here is that we're all involved in a paradoxical relationship with our planet's future: progress gives us the little gadgets and gizmoes we love and demand, but at the same time our consumer habits are partially to blame for the planet's woes; we also care about what happens to the environment, but at the same time few people these days are going to go live completely off the grid in total tune with nature. It's all about compromise. These points are illustrated amply and ironically throughout this novel, which I only put down reluctantly when forced by outside circumstances to do so.
It's pleasantly way better than what I first expected after reading the cover blurb, and while it tended to receive lower star ratings from most reviewers, I recommend it highly. I think it hit me long after I'd put down the book just how cool it really is.
A Friend of the Earth is quite different from many environmentally- or eco-based novels I've read. While some of the normal dystopian scenarios are in place, and the author in his own way lets his readers know that there is little to no hope for the future, it also makes you laugh as Mr. Boyle puts irony ahead of heavy-handedness or preaching -- since, as the main character notes, it's much too late for that.
It's 2025, and Tyrone (Ty) Tierwater works as the caretaker of a private collection of animals. Ty, in his 70s, has a good gig working for a millionaire pop star who's been trying to save some of the last critically-endangered animals before they're gone for good. As a result of global warming and the collapse of the biosphere, these days, floods, rain, heat and nightmarish winds are the norm. Ty lives a simple life, taking care of the animals and then going out for the occasional drink of sake, but that all changes when one day, without warning, his ex-wife Andrea shows up with news that a writer is interested in penning the story of their daughter Sierra. But it's not the only reason she's there -- she has plans to restart Earth Forever!, the environmental-activism group they were part of in the past, "for the survivors." Andrea's return is what prompts the story of Ty's former days as a monkeywrenching member of the group, complete with berets, raised fists and acts of ecotage, at a time when "to be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of the people." As the narrative goes back in time, it reveals not only the motivations behind Ty's actions (which may not be quite what you'd expect), but also how eventually he came to sacrifice much more than he bargained for in the process of doing his part in saving the planet. It's a wonderful book, much less heavy-handed than I expected from its beginning.
One of the messages to be found here is that we're all involved in a paradoxical relationship with our planet's future: progress gives us the little gadgets and gizmoes we love and demand, but at the same time our consumer habits are partially to blame for the planet's woes; we also care about what happens to the environment, but at the same time few people these days are going to go live completely off the grid in total tune with nature. It's all about compromise. These points are illustrated amply and ironically throughout this novel, which I only put down reluctantly when forced by outside circumstances to do so.
It's pleasantly way better than what I first expected after reading the cover blurb, and while it tended to receive lower star ratings from most reviewers, I recommend it highly. I think it hit me long after I'd put down the book just how cool it really is.
September 9, 2010
All I could manage of this one was 100 pages. I wanted to like it--its premise of near-future ecological collapse feels relevant and laudable--but the prose is so lazily executed that it begins to feel like an insult. The book is full of cheap narrative gambits and inexact metaphors and faux-ominous filler of this sort: "He doesn't like this. He doesn't like it at all." Or, much worse: "Because I'm bored. Because I've got nothing to lose. Because I know I can put the brakes on if I have to. Roll with it. Ride your pony. Oh, yes, indeed." Rereading that, I'm stunned that I put up with 100 pages.
Perhaps worse than the prose is the light-hipsterish tone that dominates the novel and implies that none of its content is ultimately very serious. Even the most catastrophic details and events of Boyle's dystopia lack reality and weight. Boyle has an inability not to be wry except in the most shocking moments, and those moments don't work because nothing that precedes them has taught the reader that seriousness will be possible in this book. Like Vonnegut, Boyle is slightly making fun of everything in his narrative, a smart-ass, self-insulating tactic that also prevents the novel from being anything you might call literary.
Perhaps worse than the prose is the light-hipsterish tone that dominates the novel and implies that none of its content is ultimately very serious. Even the most catastrophic details and events of Boyle's dystopia lack reality and weight. Boyle has an inability not to be wry except in the most shocking moments, and those moments don't work because nothing that precedes them has taught the reader that seriousness will be possible in this book. Like Vonnegut, Boyle is slightly making fun of everything in his narrative, a smart-ass, self-insulating tactic that also prevents the novel from being anything you might call literary.
May 2, 2023
A fitting cover to my mind — Friends of the Earth are roadkill in the face of humankind's greed, ignorance, and apathy.
This book is a realistically prescient rollercoaster ride portrayed in relatable satire and idealism. T. C. Boyle at his best.
A recommended read.
This book is a realistically prescient rollercoaster ride portrayed in relatable satire and idealism. T. C. Boyle at his best.
A recommended read.
April 17, 2025
A book written in the early 2000s that jumps timelines between the 90s and 2025. The main character is a eco-activist that did some questionable things that he can now reflect on at his older age.
Overall it was OK. A topical subject, the writing style wasn’t my favorite and I think I understand the point of the story but it didn’t really feel like it was going anywhere as you’re reading it.
Overall it was OK. A topical subject, the writing style wasn’t my favorite and I think I understand the point of the story but it didn’t really feel like it was going anywhere as you’re reading it.
December 28, 2016
Originally published in 2000, A Friend of the Earth by T. C. Boyle is a gripping, humorous and emotional novel which charts the life of committed eco-activist Ty Tierwater and his battles to confront humanity’s destruction of nature. I first encountered an excerpt from this book several years ago when reading the anthology I’m With The Bears: Short Stories From a Damaged Planet. The chapter ‘The Siskiyou, July 1989’ was something of a revelation for me then, a powerful, slow-reveal vignette in which a man, his wife, young daughter and another set out under cover of night on an arduous and forlorn protest against the logging of the virgin Oregon forest. The horror builds as you realise not only of the protestors’ helplessness when confronted by the loggers and the local police, but also in the love of a father for his daughter as they endure the physical and psychological torment of their protest. Boyle captures both the comedy and torment of a father torn between the love of his daughter and his attempts to fight against humanity’s rampant ecocide. As I started to read A Friend of the Earth this last fortnight, I recalled this tale and realised that this was a novel that speaks directly to one of the key dilemmas of our time: how one makes sense of the destruction of the natural world.
The novel opens in the surreal Californian countryside of 2025; a land wracked by drenching storms and stifling heat – a climate in meltdown and a society fast unravelling. At this late stage in his life, Ty Tierwater is a cynical caretaker for a bizarre menagerie of exotic animals owned by a reclusive ex-pop star. Ty’s former wife Andrea re-enters his life as the zoo’s animals escape, and the novel then oscillates between defining moments in his life and his climate-shocked ‘present’.
A rollicking, satirical read, Boyle cleverly develops Ty’s life story around his growing disgust at humanity’s relentless destruction of nature. Initially a reluctant environmentalist, through Andrea’s influence he becomes a committed eco-warrior and under the weight of his failed protests and subsequent jail-time, his resolve hardens and his methods become more extreme. As Ty declares ‘to be a friend of the earth you have to be an enemy of the people’. Modelled loosely on the example of eco-activist groups such as Earth First!, Boyle skilfully invests the story with the details and events of Ty’s mission; the species of owls, amphibians and trees that are endemic to the Oregon and Californian forests; the traffic jams and chaos of American suburban sprawl; the detailed process of ‘monkeywrenching’ the logging trucks and other machinery that Ty is at war with. The various defeats and humiliations he endures fail to dim his determination to change things, even if this means saving one small piece of the whole. As a result, Boyle creates a sympathetic anti-hero; an outsider reminiscent of the misanthropes in a Kurt Vonnegut or Carl Hiaasen novel.
Nor is this a simple morality tale. From Ty’s perspective, society is a consumerist nightmare, and the loggers, police and investigators are thugs and hypocrites. Yet, as in life, there are no neat happy endings, and Boyle emphasises the compromises and contradictions that underlie environmentalism. For instance, the co-option of increasingly corporatized environmental organisations is also neatly skewered, paralleling Naomi Klein’s more recent critique of ‘Big Green’.
While published seventeen years ago, A Friend of the Earth is more timely today than ever. In an era of climate crisis, the continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry, and the election of a US President hell-bent on destroying what piecemeal environmental protections currently exist, there is much about this novel that resonates deeply. As Aldo Leopold (1949: 183) noted nearly seventy years ago: ‘one of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds…[an ecologist] sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.’
In the unequal battle of the economy versus the environment, A Friend of the Earth captures many of the dilemmas faced by those aware of the harm we are unleashing on this planet; the lonely and often futile fight to try and limit our own creative self-destruction.
The novel opens in the surreal Californian countryside of 2025; a land wracked by drenching storms and stifling heat – a climate in meltdown and a society fast unravelling. At this late stage in his life, Ty Tierwater is a cynical caretaker for a bizarre menagerie of exotic animals owned by a reclusive ex-pop star. Ty’s former wife Andrea re-enters his life as the zoo’s animals escape, and the novel then oscillates between defining moments in his life and his climate-shocked ‘present’.
A rollicking, satirical read, Boyle cleverly develops Ty’s life story around his growing disgust at humanity’s relentless destruction of nature. Initially a reluctant environmentalist, through Andrea’s influence he becomes a committed eco-warrior and under the weight of his failed protests and subsequent jail-time, his resolve hardens and his methods become more extreme. As Ty declares ‘to be a friend of the earth you have to be an enemy of the people’. Modelled loosely on the example of eco-activist groups such as Earth First!, Boyle skilfully invests the story with the details and events of Ty’s mission; the species of owls, amphibians and trees that are endemic to the Oregon and Californian forests; the traffic jams and chaos of American suburban sprawl; the detailed process of ‘monkeywrenching’ the logging trucks and other machinery that Ty is at war with. The various defeats and humiliations he endures fail to dim his determination to change things, even if this means saving one small piece of the whole. As a result, Boyle creates a sympathetic anti-hero; an outsider reminiscent of the misanthropes in a Kurt Vonnegut or Carl Hiaasen novel.
Nor is this a simple morality tale. From Ty’s perspective, society is a consumerist nightmare, and the loggers, police and investigators are thugs and hypocrites. Yet, as in life, there are no neat happy endings, and Boyle emphasises the compromises and contradictions that underlie environmentalism. For instance, the co-option of increasingly corporatized environmental organisations is also neatly skewered, paralleling Naomi Klein’s more recent critique of ‘Big Green’.
While published seventeen years ago, A Friend of the Earth is more timely today than ever. In an era of climate crisis, the continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry, and the election of a US President hell-bent on destroying what piecemeal environmental protections currently exist, there is much about this novel that resonates deeply. As Aldo Leopold (1949: 183) noted nearly seventy years ago: ‘one of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds…[an ecologist] sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.’
In the unequal battle of the economy versus the environment, A Friend of the Earth captures many of the dilemmas faced by those aware of the harm we are unleashing on this planet; the lonely and often futile fight to try and limit our own creative self-destruction.
November 28, 2018
The fate of the earth is not the issue for main character and narrator, Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater. He knows that it's doomed. But, so does the reader. The post-apocalyptic opening chapter is set in 2025 California. Nature is reclaiming the planet. Weather related disasters rage, wreaking havoc on the remaining lifeforms and infrastructure. Ty is the "last man standing" of a class of radical environmentalists from the "Earth Forever" movement. (It is a carbon copy of a 1980's environmental movement called "Earth First.") Ty is the last one, until the ex-wife calls to reconnect after many years of separation. Their protracted reunification is the dynamic through which author TC Boyle reveals the complex character of his seventy-five year old antihero. And, it works well. The book is a satirical blend of environmentalism and love story, in which aging adults play the leading roles. I found that part of the book quite enjoyable.
The part that left me shaking my head was the subplot about Tyrone's relationship with his daughter, and his abysmal judgment as a parent. The book alternates between the 2025 timeline and his years as a parent beginning in 1989. Tyrone's pathetic efforts to parent his teenage daughter is the author's vehicle for relating the history of the Earth Forever movement. Her mother is gone, the subject of an accidental death at a young age. In the opening chapter, Tyrone places his young teenage daughter in harms way to the point that she ends up in foster care far from home. And, it gets worse: culminating in a disturbing and unbelievable scene in which the hero fights off a young foster parent and a high-school aged youth, while somehow holding his thirteen year old daughter in his arms. The scene belongs in a comic book.
So, in my view the book is a mixed bag. If you enjoy TC Boyle's work, then I recommend it. If you're not already a fan, there are probably better places to start with his body of work.
The part that left me shaking my head was the subplot about Tyrone's relationship with his daughter, and his abysmal judgment as a parent. The book alternates between the 2025 timeline and his years as a parent beginning in 1989. Tyrone's pathetic efforts to parent his teenage daughter is the author's vehicle for relating the history of the Earth Forever movement. Her mother is gone, the subject of an accidental death at a young age. In the opening chapter, Tyrone places his young teenage daughter in harms way to the point that she ends up in foster care far from home. And, it gets worse: culminating in a disturbing and unbelievable scene in which the hero fights off a young foster parent and a high-school aged youth, while somehow holding his thirteen year old daughter in his arms. The scene belongs in a comic book.
So, in my view the book is a mixed bag. If you enjoy TC Boyle's work, then I recommend it. If you're not already a fan, there are probably better places to start with his body of work.
September 28, 2019
"Because to be a friend of the earth, you have to be an enemy of the people."
This book is set in the near future, where we did not manage to stop climate change. An "eco-nut", who is now caring for a few animals that are not yet extinct, is confronted with his past.
The story switches from past to present, slowly giving away what happened to the main character Ty, and his family. Ty is an interesting character, but it was hard to root for him every now and then.
Although the premise of the story was interesting, I was a little bit let down by the form of activism Ty and the organization he was with engaged in. A big thing in the story is them trying to stop rainforest from being cut down, but they don't adress the cause of the problem. They didn't adress their own habits much. Ty doesn't support his daughters veganism, and eats meat even whilst the climate has broken down. I do have to cut the writer some slack here, as the past of Ty's story is set in the 90's, and the book was written in 2000. But it's strange that Ty is so cutthroat in his activism, whilst not changing much in his personal life.
Aside from that, I really did enjoy it. The book questions how far you should go for a cause, when it means endangering yourself and those closest to you. The reality Ty lives in in his present is tragic, and basically becoming our reality now as well.
A Friend of the Earth is an amusing read, and the ending was satisfying, but it did not give me what I was hoping for.
This book is set in the near future, where we did not manage to stop climate change. An "eco-nut", who is now caring for a few animals that are not yet extinct, is confronted with his past.
The story switches from past to present, slowly giving away what happened to the main character Ty, and his family. Ty is an interesting character, but it was hard to root for him every now and then.
Although the premise of the story was interesting, I was a little bit let down by the form of activism Ty and the organization he was with engaged in. A big thing in the story is them trying to stop rainforest from being cut down, but they don't adress the cause of the problem. They didn't adress their own habits much. Ty doesn't support his daughters veganism, and eats meat even whilst the climate has broken down. I do have to cut the writer some slack here, as the past of Ty's story is set in the 90's, and the book was written in 2000. But it's strange that Ty is so cutthroat in his activism, whilst not changing much in his personal life.
Aside from that, I really did enjoy it. The book questions how far you should go for a cause, when it means endangering yourself and those closest to you. The reality Ty lives in in his present is tragic, and basically becoming our reality now as well.
A Friend of the Earth is an amusing read, and the ending was satisfying, but it did not give me what I was hoping for.
February 2, 2011
Once again I've encountered a book that is about issues I'm extremely interested in and concerned with, but the formal characteristics of the writing are problematic to me. I'd never considered reading any of T.C. Boyle's work, though I'd heard his name quite a bit. Then I heard about this book and its subject: a washed-up old environmental activist trying to survive in a 2025 world ravaged by the effects of the global climate change he had been trying to fight in his youth. I eagerly snapped up a copy.
It turns out that Boyle does a pretty decent job envisioning that future situation - although he doesn't touch the 2 other interrelated future dooms we're heading for, economic collapse and peak oil. My main problem, though, is his writing. He seems to be considered a serious literary-type author, I thought, but I couldn't help getting caught up in the various flaws of his prose. For instance, he tends to be one of those writers that employs useless, over-the-top metaphors (a metaphor, to my mind, should be used to compare one thing the reader is less familiar with to another thing that the reader is more familiar with, as a way of conveying more clearly what that first thing is. But Boyle is fond of the reverse - using something even less familiar as a metaphor, which might serve to illuminate the narrators inner monologue but doesn't work as effective description). He also seems uncertain whether he wants to use first person or third person, and whether he's writing a surreal satire or a piece of science-based realism.
I still enjoyed this book, and it really deserves more like a 3.5 star rating, but in the end it didn't satisfy, neither from an aesthetic, i'm enjoying-the-pleasure-of-reading-good-writing standpoint nor from a this-adeptly-explores-the-concepts-I-want-it-to standpoint. Maybe I was just looking for a different book. Nevertheless, the concept of "Tortilla Curtain", another of Boyle's books, intrigues me just enough to want to risk another go at his work, and I guess that's the best indicator of my opinion.
It turns out that Boyle does a pretty decent job envisioning that future situation - although he doesn't touch the 2 other interrelated future dooms we're heading for, economic collapse and peak oil. My main problem, though, is his writing. He seems to be considered a serious literary-type author, I thought, but I couldn't help getting caught up in the various flaws of his prose. For instance, he tends to be one of those writers that employs useless, over-the-top metaphors (a metaphor, to my mind, should be used to compare one thing the reader is less familiar with to another thing that the reader is more familiar with, as a way of conveying more clearly what that first thing is. But Boyle is fond of the reverse - using something even less familiar as a metaphor, which might serve to illuminate the narrators inner monologue but doesn't work as effective description). He also seems uncertain whether he wants to use first person or third person, and whether he's writing a surreal satire or a piece of science-based realism.
I still enjoyed this book, and it really deserves more like a 3.5 star rating, but in the end it didn't satisfy, neither from an aesthetic, i'm enjoying-the-pleasure-of-reading-good-writing standpoint nor from a this-adeptly-explores-the-concepts-I-want-it-to standpoint. Maybe I was just looking for a different book. Nevertheless, the concept of "Tortilla Curtain", another of Boyle's books, intrigues me just enough to want to risk another go at his work, and I guess that's the best indicator of my opinion.
October 16, 2013
This is one of the books that makes me feel very middle of the road. It's brilliant at points. Other points it's just a whole lot of environmentalist propaganda. Sometimes so heavy handed that it takes an earth loving hippie like me and hits me over the head with it so hard that it's hard to enjoy the actual story.
The interesting thing here is not that world is going to hell in a hand basket. Any child of the 80s and 90s well knows that rhetoric and how it plays out is almost exactly like any number of pamphlets you could have picked up at an Earth rally in those eras. Unfortunately, it feels like that's the story that is most focused on here.
The truly interesting story is about Ty Tierwater. Former Eco-Terrorist, convict and now caretaker of dying breeds of "the animals no one could love". The unsavory predators of the animal world. The metaphor here becomes clear that Ty is less of an environmentalist and more of an unsavory predator. He is the product of an unhappy, abusive household with a lot of anger at the world. He finds his outlet in Earth First!, an organization devoted to the saving the earth before it's too late. Chapters alternate between the world that hasn't been saved and the years of hopeless crusades to do exactly that. The journey of self discovery the Ty undertakes to find his peace is amazing. I wish there had been more emphasis on that.
It's summed up perfectly in the last line where he's walking a patagonian fox and meets a girl who distinctly reminds him of his dead daughter:
"Is it a dog?"
"That's right," I say, "that's right, she's a dog." And then, for no reason I can think of, I can't help adding, "And I'm a human being."
It's the ultimate statement of a wolf forced to end his days in sheep's clothing.
The interesting thing here is not that world is going to hell in a hand basket. Any child of the 80s and 90s well knows that rhetoric and how it plays out is almost exactly like any number of pamphlets you could have picked up at an Earth rally in those eras. Unfortunately, it feels like that's the story that is most focused on here.
The truly interesting story is about Ty Tierwater. Former Eco-Terrorist, convict and now caretaker of dying breeds of "the animals no one could love". The unsavory predators of the animal world. The metaphor here becomes clear that Ty is less of an environmentalist and more of an unsavory predator. He is the product of an unhappy, abusive household with a lot of anger at the world. He finds his outlet in Earth First!, an organization devoted to the saving the earth before it's too late. Chapters alternate between the world that hasn't been saved and the years of hopeless crusades to do exactly that. The journey of self discovery the Ty undertakes to find his peace is amazing. I wish there had been more emphasis on that.
It's summed up perfectly in the last line where he's walking a patagonian fox and meets a girl who distinctly reminds him of his dead daughter:
"Is it a dog?"
"That's right," I say, "that's right, she's a dog." And then, for no reason I can think of, I can't help adding, "And I'm a human being."
It's the ultimate statement of a wolf forced to end his days in sheep's clothing.
February 26, 2013
You can always rely on T.C. Boyle for an entertaining read. Here, our future (the year 2025) is described in the bleakest (and at times depressing) terms: Due to our destruction of the environment, people are suffering from extreme weather conditions. At the moment, a neverending rainstorm rages for months, which makes normal living difficult. Most animals and plants are extinct, all there is to drink is sake, and the hero of the story, Ty Tierwater, has a job looking after the animals in the private menagerie of a former rock star.
Interspersed with the 2025 narrative is Ty's story of the 1980s and 90s: He was a militant environmentalist then, together with his wife and daughter (who, we slowly get to know, died under mysterious circumstances). His sabotage actions (described with much suspense) were often stupid, but in the light of 2025 he seems to have been right to warn everyone about destroying the environment.
The story has a mind-boggling climax, some humour, bizaare characters, an unlikely hero, some mysteries that are solved along the way, and almost a happy end - everything that makes an entertaining book!
Interspersed with the 2025 narrative is Ty's story of the 1980s and 90s: He was a militant environmentalist then, together with his wife and daughter (who, we slowly get to know, died under mysterious circumstances). His sabotage actions (described with much suspense) were often stupid, but in the light of 2025 he seems to have been right to warn everyone about destroying the environment.
The story has a mind-boggling climax, some humour, bizaare characters, an unlikely hero, some mysteries that are solved along the way, and almost a happy end - everything that makes an entertaining book!
July 11, 2018
This could be a fun read for tree huggers and tree spikers alike. In a narrative split between the climate battered world of 2025 and life as a circa 1990 ecosaboteur, environmental doom meets righteously taking on the system. Supporters of Deep Green Resistance, Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, or Stop Fossil Fuels are reminded of the climate chaos and mass extinction we’re fighting to head off, and can vicariously (and safely) enjoy the thrill of underground, illegal tactics against a system immune to transformation from within.
But the book falls short of its potential, reflecting real life limitations of early (and all too much contemporary) monkeywrencher culture: misogyny and an absence of strategy. This is understandable, since the book was published in 2000 before activist rape culture and toxic male behavior was being called out, and before serious analysis of how to bring down the industrial economy was readily available. If the reader can accept these historic limitations, she can probably still enjoy the book for what it is.
Read full review...
But the book falls short of its potential, reflecting real life limitations of early (and all too much contemporary) monkeywrencher culture: misogyny and an absence of strategy. This is understandable, since the book was published in 2000 before activist rape culture and toxic male behavior was being called out, and before serious analysis of how to bring down the industrial economy was readily available. If the reader can accept these historic limitations, she can probably still enjoy the book for what it is.
Read full review...
September 11, 2015
This was one of the harder post-climate change books I've read in a while. The outrageous characters. The ridiculous events. The tension between the next catastrophe and the unending pall of despair. I didn't want to watch the train wreck, but I couldn't stop either.
I haven't picked up a book since. Perhaps it was bad timing. I happened to read this while living through a week of smoke from three wildfires raging North, South and East of our area. And one of the hottest summers on record. And a county drought declaration. And the political storm raging from Nestle's efforts to bottle our water for profit.
Eco-terrorism? Civil disobedience? Political discourse? This book will not offer one over the other as the answer. Maybe its too late or it doesn't matter. Perhaps only the earth may survive our efforts to save the earth.
I haven't picked up a book since. Perhaps it was bad timing. I happened to read this while living through a week of smoke from three wildfires raging North, South and East of our area. And one of the hottest summers on record. And a county drought declaration. And the political storm raging from Nestle's efforts to bottle our water for profit.
Eco-terrorism? Civil disobedience? Political discourse? This book will not offer one over the other as the answer. Maybe its too late or it doesn't matter. Perhaps only the earth may survive our efforts to save the earth.
August 9, 2023
Eine erfrischende Dystopie.
October 3, 2015
"I've never believed in vegetarianism myself, except as an ecological principle - obviously, you can feed a whole lot more people on rice or grain than you can on a feed-intenstive animal like a steer, and, further, as everyone alive today knows, it was McDonald's and Burger King and their ilk that denuded the rain forests to provide range for yet more cows, but, still, I don't make a religion of it. Meat isn't the problem, people are."
* Ty Tierwater
* Ty Tierwater
May 18, 2025
TC Boyle nails it in Friend of the Earth - a funny and tragic tale of the environment and those that advocate or, in the case of Ty Tierwater, perform acts of eco-terrorism to raise awareness and drive change. Interestingly, the book toggles between “present day” 1990’s and “the future” which happens to be 2025! It ages well in many respects.
In the 2025 sections, the world has incurred every environmental catastrophe that we imagined circa 1990 and the collapse of all ecosystems and civil society is upon us. But Friend of the Earth is not a dystopian book per se - at its heart it is a character study. And by flashing back to the 1990’s, we get to understand how the various characters evolved in their thinking and how the actions and choices they made impacted their lives.
Boyle treats us to his usual cast of well-intended but flawed protagonists committing acts that go hopelessly and hilariously awry with the usual macabre twists that you can see coming, but still surprise. In the end, one can only cringe while chuckling and hope that it isn’t all as hopeless as depicted in the book.
Where has this book been in the Boyle opus? I have read many of his works over the years and never even heard of it until I spied it in a used bookstore in Pittsburgh PA. After finishing it, I consider it among his best works - with vivid and confident writing, character and story arcs that sustain interest, and, of course, the extensive vocabulary that serves to enhance the force and clarity of the writing. There are parts that were laugh out loud funny and I wonder at Boyle’s vivid imagination and penchant for skewering satire.
Loved it. Right up there with the best of his works - a great read from an author at the peak of his powers. If you are a fan of TC Boyle and haven’t read Friend of the Earth, I give it the strongest recommendation. If you are new to TC Boyle, it is an excellent introduction to his works
In the 2025 sections, the world has incurred every environmental catastrophe that we imagined circa 1990 and the collapse of all ecosystems and civil society is upon us. But Friend of the Earth is not a dystopian book per se - at its heart it is a character study. And by flashing back to the 1990’s, we get to understand how the various characters evolved in their thinking and how the actions and choices they made impacted their lives.
Boyle treats us to his usual cast of well-intended but flawed protagonists committing acts that go hopelessly and hilariously awry with the usual macabre twists that you can see coming, but still surprise. In the end, one can only cringe while chuckling and hope that it isn’t all as hopeless as depicted in the book.
Where has this book been in the Boyle opus? I have read many of his works over the years and never even heard of it until I spied it in a used bookstore in Pittsburgh PA. After finishing it, I consider it among his best works - with vivid and confident writing, character and story arcs that sustain interest, and, of course, the extensive vocabulary that serves to enhance the force and clarity of the writing. There are parts that were laugh out loud funny and I wonder at Boyle’s vivid imagination and penchant for skewering satire.
Loved it. Right up there with the best of his works - a great read from an author at the peak of his powers. If you are a fan of TC Boyle and haven’t read Friend of the Earth, I give it the strongest recommendation. If you are new to TC Boyle, it is an excellent introduction to his works
April 19, 2025
My first TC Boyle book really interesting, and descriptive writing didn’t really enjoy the story too much as it didn’t really have a great end. Reading is very dense if you’re not a TC Boyle fan. I will enjoy some of his other writings at a later date, but this one just wasn’t my favorite so far.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2024
Nicht der beste Roman von TCB.
Aber durchaus ok und mit einigem Weitblick geschrieben.
Aber durchaus ok und mit einigem Weitblick geschrieben.
Read
March 9, 2025DNF pg 60
April 15, 2014
A Friend of the Earth is another great effort from Boyle, one of my favorite contemporary writers. Boyle has a tremendous gift; the words just flow off the pages. With his trademark dark humor, Boyle spins the tale of Ty Tierwater, who has spent his life defending the earth, to no avail. It’s 2025, and Ty is in California, tending to an animal menagerie, owned and funded by Mac Pulvis, a retired pop star. Global warming and climate change have come true; Ty endures monsoons followed by 130 temperatures while he tries to save some of the last remaining species on the planet. Ty is over 80 and life is plenty challenging, then his ex-wife and her friend April Wind show up with the goal of writing a book on Ty’s daughter, a martyred environmentalist.
The chapters alternate between 2025, told in the first person by Ty, and 1989-90, narrated in the third person. This narrative style keeps things moving; it’s like reading two separate stories at the same time, with the same characters.
Some of Boyle’s stories meander a bit too much and get unnecessarily complex, but not this one. Concise, and brilliant, I highly recommend it.
The chapters alternate between 2025, told in the first person by Ty, and 1989-90, narrated in the third person. This narrative style keeps things moving; it’s like reading two separate stories at the same time, with the same characters.
Some of Boyle’s stories meander a bit too much and get unnecessarily complex, but not this one. Concise, and brilliant, I highly recommend it.
July 25, 2011
This book successfully uses fiction as social commentary on the environmental history and politics of America. The writing is smooth and the imagery evocative - the crisp and cool mountain air of the sierra nevada forests at the end of the last century in stark contrast to what the future in 2025 could very likely be: charred, dusty and yet filled with violent storms and extreme weather, a world largely bereft of wildlife, where swathes of forests lie destroyed. Indeed, Boyle portrays a bleak, sad, and overcrowded dystopian future. It is depressing to watch how the protagonist fails to make any difference to the destruction of the planet despite being an active militant environmentalist in his prime years in the 80s and 90s, as flashbacks during the later years of his life as a pathetic, bitter man attest to. However its a satirical novel, and Boyle's work is one of black humor, serving to dull the pessimistic environmental message running through the book, resulting in a highly enjoyable and imaginative piece of fiction.
November 19, 2019
I don't have much to say. The premise obviously appeals to me, but I just never got into the plot or characters. I didn't particularly care about Tierwater, Andrea, or Sierra, though I know I was supposed to. There were also a few plot points that fell flat (no pun intended), like Sierra falling out of the tree or the lion eating Mac. Felt very convenient. And then there was the poisoning the water incident that didn't ever get explained fully. Including it only in passing makes it seem like the author got sick of the book and just wanted to be done with it.
This is my second TC Boyle book, and I didn't much like the first either. So just a different style I guess.
This is my second TC Boyle book, and I didn't much like the first either. So just a different style I guess.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2013
This was a little bit of a struggle for me to get through. I enjoy T.C. Boyle books but this one is dark - environmental destruction as a result of global warming and the greenhouse effect, the climate has changed, and, accordingly, biodiversity is a thing of the past. Many animal species are extinct, etc. It was a beautifully written but depressing book. It is the story of Tyrone Tierwater, a former environmentalist who is now living on a rock stars estate and taking care of endangered animal close to extinction, who is as gloomy as the world he lives in.
September 7, 2015
I think it's time to admit that I will never finish this book. I don't know what it is: at some point I read a Boyle story, perhaps in Harper's, and somehow developed the idea that I liked his writing and wanted to read more. This is my second Boyle novel, though, and I just can't be bothered to finish it, so maybe I like it less than I thought. There's not really even anything wrong with it, I just find that I fundamentally don't care, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for a book.
April 18, 2019
Simply dreadful.
July 23, 2022
I don’t know. A book about global warming and it’s devastating conclusion in 2025. A book written in 2000 apparently with a bit of prescience. By an author that I have experienced frequently but never quite managed to love and understand in spite of that familiarity.
This is a story that ratchets between the late 1980s and the early 2020s when life was quite different in spite of the relative few years. I suppose that is to show how quickly things can go south so to speak.
We have the main character being a man who is a devoted ecoterrorist. He goes to jail a few times until he can finally keep his determination under control once he has lost the battle. Or I guess I really should say once we have lost the battle.
This book all happens on the West Coast between California and Oregon. It has the obligatory girl who is a tree sitter and the daughter of the main character. She is obviously a dedicated environmentalist until she falls out of the tree after sitting in it for several years and setting records. The book was written just after Julia butterfly Hill sat in her own Redwood named Luna from 1997 through 1999. So the author was just a copycat.
In some ways this book is a horror story about the possible future of the earth in a very short space of time. So it is a cautionary tale on a large scale. And it is also some thing of a tale about throwing caution to the wind in the type of action taken to prevent the degradation of the world. And definitely leans in the anti-lumbering direction! But the story of the individuals involved was not especially captivating.
This is a story that ratchets between the late 1980s and the early 2020s when life was quite different in spite of the relative few years. I suppose that is to show how quickly things can go south so to speak.
We have the main character being a man who is a devoted ecoterrorist. He goes to jail a few times until he can finally keep his determination under control once he has lost the battle. Or I guess I really should say once we have lost the battle.
This book all happens on the West Coast between California and Oregon. It has the obligatory girl who is a tree sitter and the daughter of the main character. She is obviously a dedicated environmentalist until she falls out of the tree after sitting in it for several years and setting records. The book was written just after Julia butterfly Hill sat in her own Redwood named Luna from 1997 through 1999. So the author was just a copycat.
In some ways this book is a horror story about the possible future of the earth in a very short space of time. So it is a cautionary tale on a large scale. And it is also some thing of a tale about throwing caution to the wind in the type of action taken to prevent the degradation of the world. And definitely leans in the anti-lumbering direction! But the story of the individuals involved was not especially captivating.
August 18, 2019
Boyle is a wonderful writer. The hero here is a bawdy and impassioned environmentalist who has become radical in thought and action. His love of the earth and hate of corrupt logging and other companies that threaten the pristine beauty of his home in California up to Oregon causes him, his wife and daughter to extreme acts of courage and tenacity. Set in 2025 with half the book flashing back to the chronicling of his deeds and misdeeds as a 'tree hugger' in the late 80's(written in 2000) the book is a tragic, bleak picture of the world gone awry to where few animals have survived. His current job, in a world of extreme storms and sweltering heat, is to feed and protect the few remaining big cats, hyenas, even a few anteaters that are left from the L.A. Zoo, hired by a zillionaire music celebrity in a hill compound. The characters and situations ludicrously funny and realized, it is a prescient visualization of our current state of affairs.
June 7, 2019
Written in 2000 this novel,set before and after the full effects of climate change, is even more of the moment. It is a book for the Extinction Rebellion age.
It’s pretty down beat and dark, however, as the focus is on individual action with no mention of any national or international attempts to halt environmental catastrophe. Nature is not tame and will not do what we want it to, even if we are trying to make things right.
It’s pretty down beat and dark, however, as the focus is on individual action with no mention of any national or international attempts to halt environmental catastrophe. Nature is not tame and will not do what we want it to, even if we are trying to make things right.
February 27, 2021
While it drags a bit at times, the story is still an enjoyable (albeit depressing) tale of what happens to people as the world collapses around them. Remarkable that it was written in 2000, it feels like it could have come out today.
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