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If the River Was Whiskey book cover
If the River Was Whiskey
1989
First Published
3.93
Average Rating
240
Number of Pages
In sixteen stories, T.C. Boyle tears through the walls of contemporary society to reveal a world at once comic and tragic, droll and horrific. Boyle introduces us to a death-defying stuntman who rides across the country strapped to the axle of a Peterbilt, and to a retired primatologist who can’t adjust to the “civilized” world. He chronicles the state of romance that requires full-body protection in a disease-conscious age and depicts with aching tenderness the relationship between a young boy and his alcoholic father. These magical and provocative stories mark yet another virtuoso performance from one of America’s most supple and electric literary inventors.
Avg Rating
3.93
Number of Ratings
1,341
5 STARS
28%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
24%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
1%
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Author

T. Coraghessan Boyle
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Author · 37 books

T. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twleve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program. He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.

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