After the Plague: Stories

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Viking, 2001 - Fiction - 303 pages
Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T. C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, his sixth collection of stories, Boyle exhibits his maturing themes, speaking to contemporary social issues in a range of emotional keys. The sixteen stories gathered here, nine of which have appeared in The New Yorker and three in The O'Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories volumes, display Boyle's astonishing range as he rings his changes on everything from air rage ("Friendly Skies") to abortion doctors ("Killing Babies"). There are also stories of quiet passion here, such as "The Love of My Life", which deals with first love and its consequences, and "My Widow", a touching portrait of the writer's own possible future. The collection ends with the brilliant title story, a whimsical and imaginative vision of a disease-ravaged Earth and the few inheritors of a new Eden. Presented with characteristic wit and intelligence, these stories will delight readers in search of the latest news of the chaotic, disturbing, and achingly beautiful world in which we live.

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Contents

Termination Dust
1
She Wasnt Soft
21
Killing Babies
43
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

T. C. Boyle was born Thomas John Boyle in Peekskill, New York on December 2, 1948. He received a B.A. in English and history from SUNY Potsdam in 1968, a MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, and a Ph.D. degree in nineteenth century British literature from the University of Iowa in 1977. He has been a member of the English department at the University of Southern California since 1978. He has written over 20 books including After the Plague, Drop City, The Inner Circle, Tooth and Claw, The Human Fly, Talk Talk, The Women, Wild Child, and When the Killing's Done. He has received numerous awards including the PEN/Faulkner Award for best novel of the year for World's End; the PEN/Malamud Prize in the short story for T. C. Boyle Stories; and the Prix Médicis Étranger for best foreign novel in France for The Tortilla Curtain. His title's Sam Miguel and The Harder They Caome made The New York Times Best Seller List.

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