{"product_id":"9781570037801","title":"Understanding T.C. Boyle","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe first critical companion to the works of this darkly comic short story writer and novelist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUnderstanding T. C. Boyle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is the first book-length study of one of contemporary America's most prolific, popular, and critically acclaimed fiction writers. The author of seven short story collections and eleven novels, T. C. Boyle has been honored with the 1988 PEN\/Faulkner Award for \u003ci\u003eWorld's End,\u003c\/i\u003e the 1997 Prix Médicis Étranger for \u003ci\u003eThe Tortilla Curtain,\u003c\/i\u003e the 1999 PEN\/Malamud Award for \u003ci\u003eT. C. Boyle: Stories,\u003c\/i\u003e and a 2003 National Book Award nomination for \u003ci\u003eDrop City.\u003c\/i\u003e Boyle's 1993 novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Road to Wellville,\u003c\/i\u003e was adapted into a feature film.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePaul Gleason begins his investigation of Boyle's work by exploring the biographical, historical, and literary contexts at play in the writer's fiction. Gleason maps the literary influences that shaped Boyle's \"wise guy\" style, among them Gabriel García Márquez, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, and Samuel Beckett. The volume then features chapters on Boyle's short fiction and his novels of the past three decades. Gleason demonstrates Boyle's literary development as entertainer, absurdist, social commentator and critic, and historical novelist who chronicles the baby boomer generation while addressing a range of contemporary social issues, such as race relations, illegal immigration, and feminism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGleason shows how Boyle uses dark humor as a moral and satiric force for social commentary in the tradition of writers such as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of South Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47055517876464,"sku":"9781570037801","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781570037801_p0.jpg?v=1763776918","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781570037801","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}