Rating: 3.5
T.C. Boyle certainly has a talent for writing. I love his style but sadly, I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as some of his other works.
This book alternates between the near future of 2025 and the not too distant past of 30 years ago....and a little bit of the time between. The main character is Ty Tierwater. In the year 2025 he's an older fellow who works for a rich musician. His job is to take care of the musicians menagerie of ugly animals....the animals that nobody else seems to care about. And mammals in the year 2025 are a pretty rare thing. See, there is really no biodiversity left because of global warming, and the earth seems to be on a fast downward spiral. Boyle does not paint a pretty future in this tale. I think it was well researched though and unfortunately seems all too plausible. So this story alternates between this bleak future and Tierwater's past, when he was an eco-terrorist. He broke the law, spent quite a few years in prison, lost his daughter (in more ways than one) and he did it all for the earth and the animals. Was it all in vain? Does he have any regrets? I won't give it away.
I thought this was an interesting tale. It's definitely not a cheerful story....though it does end in a slightly optimistic way. For some reason though (it wasn't the writing) I just didn't really get into this book all that much. Not as much as I thought I would anyway. I'm a big fan of T.C. Boyle so I was expecting to really lose myself in the story. Not so. A Friend of the Earth is sort of intriguing and a decent diversion but I guess I was just expecting better.
