Good collection of short stories. Glad I stumbled across T.C. Boyle, he's a very talented writer. ( )

The writing was tops, the characters interesting - but I discovered I hate short stories. ( )

Confident but facile writing. Boyle comes up with one perfect sentence after another, each anchored with a clever simile, or well-oiled line of dialog, or dazzling verb, or sometimes all three. Whether any of these well-crafted sentences fit the needs of the story or not seems beside the point. The first-person stories all sound like exactly the same voice: cynical, unpleasantly selfish, and ridiculously perceptive of tiny details. It's completely the same voice, no matter who the narrative character is. The stories themselves left an unpleasant residue in my mind. The exception to all of the above is the first story of the collection, Balto, which captured a believable perspective of a young girl being raised by an alcoholic father. ( )

I don't think I'm a fan of short stories. ( )

My first read of anything by T. C. Boyle and I liked it. Unfortunately my library copy only had the title novella and there were no other accompanying short stories. It would have been good to have other stories to balance the feel of this particular story.

I was put in mind a little of the story of - The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser - in that the reader is introduced to a feral child with no language, no education, no self-awareness, no shame, no family, and so on. The story - based on the early 19th century true story of Victor of Aveyron - tells of how one man of inexhaustible patience attempts to 'civilise' a 'savage' child.

Abandoned by a parent who bungled their attempt to slit the child's throat, Victor had grown up alone in woodlands, living in nature, eating uncooked vegetables, fruits, and occasional tastes of raw meat. Eventually, as rumours of occasional sightings grew in number, the boy is captured and taken in to post-revolutionary French life. What follows is a catalogue of incidents, some progressive, some regressive, which retell how he is passed from one institution to the next until he eventually arrives into the care of a young and ambitious academic at the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris. Efforts to impart some form of belated education on Victor are largely unsuccessful, although there are momentary breakthroughs. It is an interesting and ultimately tragic tale.

The writer narrated my audiobook and that was a big plus. I'd certainly like to read other stories by T. C. Boyle. ( )