Kelly Writers House Fellows 2014: T. C. Boyle March 31-April 1

This is a critical companion to the works of this darkly comic short story writer and novelist. Though the entertainment value of Boyle's writing has much to do with his popularity, Gleason also sees him as an iconoclast who questions his generation's ideals, philosophies, and actions. (From the Publisher).

It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune has decided to relocate to the last frontier-the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska-in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. The novel opposes two groups of characters: Sess Harder, his wife Pamela, and other young Alaskans who are already homesteading in the wilderness and the brothers and sisters of Drop City, who, despite their devotion to peace, free love, and the simple life, find their commune riven by tensions. As these two communities collide, their alliances shift and unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one's head. (From the Publisher).

Walter Van Brunt is a dreamer, and a lover of drugs, alcohol and speed. He likes nothing better than to fly along on his motorbike, invincible and immortal. But one day, dodging a mysterious shadow on the road, he crashes into a barrier and loses his right foot. Walter is a descendant of Dutch yeomen and since the day of the accident he has been haunted by their ghosts. When he receives a new plastic foot he is determined to find his father who deserted his family years ago, and to uncover the secrets of his ancestors. (From Google Books).

These fourteen stories Boyle's imaginative muscle, emotional sensitivity, and astonishing range. Here you will find the whimsical tales for which Boyle is famous. (From the Publisher).