T. C. Boyle Visits Tomorrow

Q: A lot of your stories in this volume present characters, usually men, who are so self-absorbed that they necessarily veer toward disaster. Is your view of human nature more dark than light?

A: I have lived one of the most fortunate of human lives, surrounded by light and love. I have known my closest friend since I was 3 1/2 years old, my children are slim and tall and beautiful and smarter than all the computers in the world combined, and I remain the only writer in history only to have one wife, the legendary Karen Kvashay, my college sweetheart at SUNY Potsdam.

Still, I do suspect that the universe doesn't care much about any of this or any of us and that accident rules the world. Fiction is a place for examining the darker scenarios, the ones we hope to avoid.

Read more of Elizabeth Floyd Mair's interview in Sunday's Times Union:
http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Tales-to-tell-4866512.php

T. C. Boyle, fiction writer
October 8 (Tuesday)
Seminar — 4:15 p.m., Standish Room, Science Library, Uptown Campus
Reading — 8:00 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, Uptown Campus

T. C. Boyle, “one of the most inventive and verbally exuberant writers of his generation” (New York Times), is the bestselling author of fourteen novels and nine short story collections. His newest book is T. C. Boyle Stories II (October 2013), a 944-page sequel to T. C. Boyle Stories (1998), winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction. Michael Anderson of the New York Times Book Review described the latter as “700 flashy, inventive pages of stylistic and moral acrobatics.” Boyle’s novels include San Miguel (2012), Drop City (2003), The Road to Wellville (1993), and World’s End (1987).