When the Killing’s Done
A Novel
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1 mois d'essai gratuit à Audible Standard
When the Killing’s Done
Acheter pour 23,78 $
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Narrateur(s):
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Anthony Heald
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Auteur(s):
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T. C. Boyle
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 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.
©2011 T. Coraghessan Boyle (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Ce que les critiques en disent
“A smart and rollicking novel, with suspense and shipwrecks galore…Boyle proves his mettle by grafting a page from the strange-crime annals into a life-and-death story of evolution, shipwrecks and dominion over the earth…Character, science and history co-evolve marvelously here in a tale of fanaticism gone literally overboard. Boyle devotees will find everything they expect in the way of manic plotlines, flamboyant obsessions, and cool comeuppance outlandishly delivered.”
(New York Times Book Review)“Terrifically exciting and unapologetically relevant…Boyle’s white-water prose propels us through sixty years of tumultuous history involving the Northern Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura, California. Long a master at scenes of quick-moving crisis, Boyle punctuates this plot with some of the best disasters of his career…Gripping.”
(Washington Post)“Mudslides, earthquakes, floods, fires—nothing quite gets T. C. Boyle’s juices going like a natural disaster putting his characters through a wringer…[Boyle’s] jazzy, slangy, iridescent style could scarcely be more of the moment…He writes lyrically, beautifully—about the ocean, the land, about California history and its pitfalls and perils…Boyle makes us laugh and wonder at his dazzling gifts but his comedy is a dark business.”
(Los Angeles Times)“The wind-racked, sun-cooked, fogged-in, rain-drenched, mostly-but-not-quite-altogether-wild Channel Islands—this novel’s primary setting—are made for Boyle’s robust language and relentless rhythms…the rage, obsessions, and tragic self-righteousness that drive many of Boyle’s characters in his other novels are in full swing here, but they’re somewhat tempered by sincerity and epiphany.”
(Atlantic)“The Pacific coast is anything but pacific. It’s cold, rocky, harsh, fogbound, the perfect place for T. C. Boyle to bring together all his themes…And he is at his best here.”
(Miami Herald)“Boyle’s play-by-play skewering of a contemporary environmental standoff modeled on real life events is as dramatic and richly textured as his best work.”
(NPR.org)“When the Killing’s Done falls in nicely with the mood of Margaret Atwood’s vatic sci-fi tales or Jonathan Franzen’s recent naturalistic Freedom…It’s an exciting narrative, incorporating tragedy, anger, and a satisfying amount of natural history.”
(New York Review of Books)“There’s nothing reserved about T. C. Boyle, the maximalist whose never met a scene he couldn’t spin into a fireworks show…The opening shipwreck scene will leave you wearing a life jacket in the bathtub…When the Killing’s Done may be the world’s first island-biogeographical thriller.”
(Outside)“Boyle combines this strong commitment to the sheer entertainment of a well-told story with a fervent insistence that we think for ourselves.”
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)