Without a Hero: Stories [Paperback]

T. Coraghessan Boyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1995

A critic recently said of T. Coraghessan Boyle, "More happens in one of Boyle's stories than in most post-Victorian novels." This is precisely the case in Without a Hero, fifteen stunning stories that each, in its own way, displays a virtuosity and versatility rare in literary America. In this, his fourth story collection, Boyle takes chance after chance, even to the point of reexamining the ethos of Ernest Hemingway, one of the masters of the form. In "Big Game, " the wild animal safari takes place not in Africa but on a pay-per-shoot ranch in Southern California and includes an elephant hunt and its vivid consequences. There are echoes here of Hemingway's classic "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and Green Hills of Africa, but Boyle's hunting story is drawn for the age of ecology rather than an age without limits. Throughout, Boyle displays an astonishing range as he zooms in on such American specimens as the college football player who knows only defeat; the entrepreneur who creates a center for acquisitive disorders; the couple in search of the last toads on earth; and the boy caught between the ingenuousness of childhood and the cynicism of adulthood in "The Fog Man." In some of these stories, Boyle makes you laugh out loud; in others you come closer to understanding the human condition because of the way he cuts to the secret places in his people's hearts. Here is the author of the highly praised 1993 novel, The Road to Wellville, entering a richer and deeper phase in his writing life, his stories bursting with what the Los Angeles Times has called his "ferocious, delicious imagination, often darkly satirical and always infatuated with language."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Boyle's fourth collection of short stories, he depicts a variety of individuals in his usual style of satire and humor.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the title story of Boyle's fourth collection of short fiction, a Southern California swinger hopes to impress a beautiful Russian immigrant with a taste of the good life, only to find himself outclassed by her mastery of consumer culture. In "Filthy with Things," a yuppie couple is forced to seek professional help for an "aggregation disorder" that has turned their suburban home into a warehouse of antiques and collectibles. The narrator of "Beat," another wonderful tale, recalls drinking Mogen David wine and listening to Bing Crosby records with Kerouac and Memere one Christmas in the 1950s. Boyle's unique brand of satire avoids the moral indignation that often characterizes the genre. Here, humans are the hapless dupes of their own possessions. An upcoming film version of Boyle's novel The Road to Wellville ( LJ 3/15/93) should create a demand for this writer's work. Recommended for most fiction collections.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140178392
• ISBN-13: 978-0140178395
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,231,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of eleven novels, including World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and The Inner Circle. His most recent story collections are Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HE'S A WHIZ WITH A NARRATIVE !, October 7, 2005

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Without a Hero: Stories (Paperback)

In this, his ninth book and fourth collection of stories, T. Coraghessan Boyle is as satiric, offbeat, and laconic as ever. A whiz with a narrative, his stories are so well honed that there does not seem to be an extraneous syllable.

True to form, the author tackles improbable subjects and fleshes them out with bigger than life characters in unlikely situations.

A bored adman is spending his 30th birthday on a windy beach with only "a comforting apocalyptic tract about the demise of the planet" for company. There he meets Alena Jorgensen, a beautiful animal rights activist. He falls in love with her and placates her by eating unappetizing breakfasts, "...brewer's yeast and what appeared to be some sort of bark marinated in yogurt." He even joins in a Beverly Hills anti-fur march, challenging "A wizened silvery old woman who might have been an aging star or a star's mother," and is flattened by the woman's kickboxing chauffeur.

One would be hard pressed to select a favorite among the 16 sketches included in this collection. "Filthy With Things" is a mirror held to the face of greed, as a couple whose home is bulging with their possessions seeks the help of professional organizers to ease them into a "nonacquisative environment."

In "Big Game," Bernard Puff operates a big game preserve located just outside of Bakersfield, California. There, for a price, guests can shoot anything. Puff affects a phony British accent, and drinks quinine water although nary a malarial mosquito has been spotted.

"Without A Hero" speaks with an unconventional voice but, oh, how refreshing to hear it.

- Gail Cooke

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bright spots galore in this story collection, September 6, 2000

By 

Elaine Wilson "kostia" (Manassas, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Without a Hero: Stories (Paperback)

If I were the author of The Road To Wellville, I don't think I'd print that on my books. I think I'd just coast on having a wonderful name like "Coraghessan" to throw around. In any case, 56-0 was sort of heartbreaking, and Top of the Food Chain barreled down a road I'd always wondered about, and Big Game I really liked, for being about Hemingway a little, and Filthy With Things scared the living daylights out of me, reminding me more than a little of the Stephen King story Quitters, Inc.

5.0 out of 5 stars Filthy With Fun, January 7, 2005

By 

S. A. Cartwright "Stu Cartwright" (Wayland, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Without a Hero: Stories (Paperback)

WITHOUT A HERO is a terrific collection of short stories by a highly inventive author. I recently enjoyed his novel INNER CIRCLE, and previously had noticed his imaginative, satirical stories in the pages of The New Yorker. Quite simply, T.C. Boyle is fun to read.

Short stories showcase Boyle's creativity and wit. Here we enjoy tales about over-monied California real estate moguls trophy hunting outside Bakersfield ("Big Game"); the astonomer and his collectibles-crazy wife who undergo reprogramming at the hands of a professional clutter organizer ("Filthy With Things"); the remarried, aged husband doting on his ridiculously demanding wife and his unpredictable reaction to her well-being in a hurricane ("Act of God"); the mud-splattered and half-crippled, never-say-die right guard for the Caledonia College football team ("56-0"); the beatnik who has hitchhiked across the US for a night of carousing with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs ("Beat"); and the young Irish-American boy sucking in both the carcinogenic fumes of bug-spray and prejudice ("The Fog Man"). The thriller of the bunch is the closer. In "Sitting on Top of the World" sexy ranger Elaine guards the forest from fire, splendidly isolated for days in the mountaintop station, enjoying her solitude. Until a stranger comes knocking....