“I
think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with
absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we
don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning.”
– T. C. Boyle
Born on this date in 1948, Thomas Coraghessan Boyle
is an award-winning novelist, short story writer and Distinguished Professor of
English (at the University of Southern California).
A native of New York, Boyle earned his writing
degrees both there and in Iowa before gravitating to the West Coast where he
has lived most of his adult life. His
writing often focuses on Baby Boomers – their joys, appetites and addictions –
and on the ruthlessness and unpredictability of nature and the toll human
society sometimes unwittingly takes on the environment. He has authored 14 novels, including the
PEN/Faulkner winning World's End, which recounts 300 years in his home
stomping grounds of upstate New York.
His most recent – and much acclaimed – book is this year’s The Terranauts, set in a glassed-in biodome
in Arizona and closely similar to the real-life Biosphere II. The plot focuses
on two of the inside crew and one jealous outsider.
Boyle’s short stories regularly appear in the
major American magazines like The New
Yorker and Harper’s and he has
published 8 short story collections, including a great look at “the best of” in
T.C. Boyle Stories II from 2014. A much sought-after speaker, he said, “I
love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like
controversy.”
His advice to those who hope to
write is to be good readers. 
“I read
widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being
informed - and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into
the scenario for a novel or story.”
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