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A Friend of the Earth Audiobook
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(3.01) - 1,613 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
A Friend of the Earth opens in the year 2025, as Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tidewater ekes out a bleak living in southern California, managing a rock star's private menagerie. Global warming is a reality. The biosphere has collapsed and most of the major mammalian species are extinct. Once Ty was so seriously committed to environmental causes that he became an ecoterrorist and convicted felon. Once he unwittingly endangered both his daughter, Sierra, and his wife, Andrea. Now when he's just trying to survive, Andrea comes back into his life. What happens as the two slip into a reborn involvement makes for a gripping and topical story told in Boyle's uniquely funny and serious voice. "America's most imaginative contemporary novelist blends idealism and satire in a story that addresses the ultimate question of human love and the survival of the species."—Newsweek
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"It was with this book that I finally realized how much I always enjoy TC Boyle's book. Given five stars mainly for the hold its post-environmental-apocalypse exerts on my mind. Excellent vision of what climate change might look like."
— Jim (5 out of 5 stars)
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“Mordantly funny and inventive.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Boyle is an ingenious and masterful storyteller.”
— Booklist -
“A powerful satire.”
— Library Journal
A Friend of the Earth Listener Reviews
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" so...it's been a long time since i've read this book. and my memory, i know, is spotty at best. but...when it's really raining, raining, raining here i think of this book and how quickly the world is coming to its crazy climatic end. "
— Tamara, 2/19/2014 -
" The fearlessly creative T.C. Boyle is a master wordsmith and a genius storyteller. This book, Friend of the Earth, jumps between the early 1990's and 2025 and recounts the experience of an eco-warrior and wild animal tender, Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater. Each page is like eating creme brulee - and you never get full. "
— Mariah, 2/17/2014 -
" Boyle is nothing less than amazing. "
— Susan, 2/17/2014 -
" As usual, reading Boyle is a delightful ride, and read. I love his irreverence and the way he goes out on a limb; although I feel a bit manipulated by his sometimes salacious imagery. There's always the lens of machismo, even when he attempts to embrace a woman's POV. But at least he tries. I don't personally relish guerilla environmental tactics or star politics that don't involve the 99%, either. But, wow, he's got some writing kohones (SP?) "
— Mary, 2/14/2014 -
" This book is set in a post-eco-apocalyptic world where storms and mayhem make up the daily lives of interesting characters who belong to a fictional environmental action group based on groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) or Earth First. The plot revolves around desperate salvaging of some of the last (and least cuddly) surviving mammals left on a ravaged earth. "
— Mariah, 2/1/2014 -
" Narrative bounces back and forth between 2025 when the ecosystem of the world has fallen apart, and the late eighties and the environmental movement and eco-terrorism. Hero is a middleaged man who gets involved late in life in the environmental movement, and embraces outright warfare after a botched attempt at passive resistance. As a young-old man in the 21st century he works at saving wild animals for a Michael Jackson kind of figure. Book emphasizes what may be the futility of an attempt to save the planet. "
— Jack, 1/14/2014 -
" the first book by Boyle I have ever read.well written. "
— James, 1/12/2014 -
" The writing is good, but the story jumps back and forth all over the place in a less than effective way. I found it distractingly preachy as well. By the end I was just reading to finish the book, not because I really cared much about the outcome. "
— Laura, 1/5/2014 -
" Classic TC Boyle, satire peppered with idiocy, humor truth and the human condition "
— Eriel, 1/2/2014 -
" A great apocalyptic story. Read it to be ready for what is to come... "
— Meesh, 12/16/2013 -
" Some good dystopian post-environmental-crash satire here, but at the time I remember thinking that it felt overly softened by comparison to the Welsh and Palahniuk I'd been reading around it. I'm not really that enamored with TC Boyle's novels, I think. "
— Nate, 10/26/2013 -
" Depressing and a little preachy. Also kind of crazy. "
— Emily, 10/22/2013 -
" not his best but still very good "
— Michelle, 9/9/2013 -
" Hilarious. Too, too true. "
— Liz, 4/20/2013 -
" I just couldn't finish this one. I like dark, but this was too much for me, especially with the way things are going for the environment and animals lately. Love T.C. Boyle, maybe I'll pick this one up again another day. "
— prairiesister, 3/19/2013 -
" I didn't get a lot of profundity or humor out of this, but it was a damn good story. "
— Kristen, 12/28/2012 -
" An interesting and amazing book that goes back and forth between hippy dtimes and the future and it is sort of unfortunate that maybe this is what we all have in store for us when it comes to our land, animals and the future "
— Jennifer, 8/29/2012 -
" Dystopia not far from now in So-Cal- worth a read. "
— Jscorse, 6/13/2012 -
" Eh. 3 stars might even be too much. "
— Joe, 4/24/2012 -
" My favorite T.C. Boyle work. Then comes Riven Rock. Then The Road to Wellville. "
— Nancie, 10/23/2011 -
" Set in 2025 the environment has deteriorated drastically. The characters are complex, there are no easy answers. This book depressed me and stuck with me for along time. "
— Jen, 5/30/2011 -
" The writing is good, but the story jumps back and forth all over the place in a less than effective way. I found it distractingly preachy as well. By the end I was just reading to finish the book, not because I really cared much about the outcome. "
— Laura, 2/27/2011 -
" really made me think about the few "eco-warriors" out there. need more, less buying stuff, more preserving stuff. i know i'm guilty of stuff, how do you stop? help! "
— Bwags75, 1/27/2011 -
" Ecological dystopia. Not the best of this breed, but enjoyable. "
— Ben, 11/3/2010 -
" Dystopia not far from now in So-Cal- worth a read. "
— Jscorse, 7/23/2010 -
" Theme of progress as destruction. Compare to Player Piano. Saving exotic animals who escape to kill people. "
— Sue, 1/17/2010 -
" not my favorite of his work...guess I'm a Greasy Lake fan. "
— Bethany, 12/30/2009
About the Authors
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.
T. C. Boyle is an American novelist and short-story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twelve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988 for his third novel, World’s End, and Frances’ Prix Médicis étranger in 1995 for The Tortilla Curtain. His novel Drop City, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Award. He has also won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the Henry David Thoreau Prize, and the Jonathan Swift Prize for satire. He is a distinguished professor emeritus of English at the University of Southern California.
About Scott Brick
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.