T. Coraghessan Boyle
Doyne McKenzie, Collection Development Manager

T. Coraghessan Boyle, author of this year’s One Read, "The Tortilla Curtain" (Viking Penguin, 1995), is a humorist and social commentator. He has produced 17 short story collections and novels since 1979, many of which involve outrageous characters in bizarre situations.

Boyle’s 1993 novel "The Road to Wellville" (Viking, 1994), based on the life of John Harvey Kellogg, was made into a movie in 1994 starring Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda. This comic novel examines the health spa craze in turn of the century America and our continuing preoccupation with fad diets.

"Riven Rock" (Viking, 1998), a tale of romance and redemption, is also based on an historical figure. Stanley McCormick, youngest son of the founder of International Harvester, was institutionalized soon after his marriage for being a schizophrenic sex maniac. Although the couple neither divorced nor consummated their marriage, Katherine, his wife, remained committed to him, communicating with him only by telephone while he spent his years in the California sanitarium built for his equally insane sister.

Alfred Kinsey inspired Boyle’s "The Inner Circle" (Viking 2004). The narrator, John Milk, Kinsey’s inexperienced assistant, slowly becomes degraded as he is sucked into his mentor’s research. This story can be seen as a precaution to ordinary men who are drawn into the service of genius.

Boyle examines the hippie culture of the 1970s in "Drop City" (Viking 2003), allowing the idealism of a radical utopian commune to clash with the urgencies of survival in the Alaskan wilderness. In his examination of this naive but idealistic period, Boyle examines such universal themes as rebellion and disillusionment.

"Talk, Talk" (Viking, 2006), Boyle’s novel to be released in July, involves identity theft. Dana Halter, a deaf teacher, is engulfed in the legal system by a traffic stop in this modern-day nightmare. After she learns her identity has been stolen, she sets off on a cross-country pursuit of the thief.

Boyle reaches into the future in "A Friend of Earth" (Viking 2000), painting a dystopia featuring floods, drought, high winds and the extinction of many mammals. Narrated by Ty Tierwater, a former eco-terrorist turned zookeeper of a private menagerie, the novel provides flashbacks to Ty’s activities in the 1980s and 1990s. Boyle spares neither developers nor environmentalists in this disturbing view of the United States in 2025.

As in all his books, in "The Tortilla Curtain" Boyle examines many social and ecological subjects. The differences between Cándido and América Rincon and Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher on the levels of aspirations, fears and sustenance are contrasted as the focus of the novel shifts in each chapter from one couple to the other. Cándido and América are faced with barriers of language, medical services, employment and legality, while Delaney and Kyra erect fences and walls, lock doors and gates and close the labor exchange. Boyle shows us the encroachment of man on his environment and the threat of nature and natural forces on human settlements.

Boyle will speak at 7 p.m. Sept. 20 at Jesse Auditorium on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus. This is only one of the many September activities planned by Daniel Boone Regional Library around "The Tortilla Curtain," which is also MU’s Freshman Summer reading selection for 2006.