T.C. Boyle's Short Fiction: Character, Narrator, and Truth

Introduction: T.C. Boyle's Literary World

T. Coraghessan Boyle is a highly educated author who earned a BA and an MFA before completing his PhD at the University of Iowa in the late 1970s. Since 1978, he has been a professor in the English department at the University of Southern California. He has published numerous novels and more than one hundred short stories, and for these works he has received a significant number of awards, making him one of the most celebrated modern American authors.

What makes Boyle's literary world so interesting is that he does not confine himself to a single genre or mode. Instead, he moves freely between historical fiction, morality tales, and whatever style he deems necessary to tell the story he needs or wants to tell. He consistently endeavors to craft a compelling narrative with interesting characters and a wealth of detail. His characters are never two-dimensional archetypes but fully developed individuals, which is central to the overall quality of his work. Inherent in each story is a claim to historicity — some assertion that the story is true or could be true, or at the very least that it is realistic enough that something very close to it has occurred or will occur.

Historicity and Romance in 'Ike and Nina'

In the short story "Ike and Nina," Boyle works in the mode of historical fiction, imagining a fictional romance between former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a Russian woman, Madame Nina Khrushcheva. What makes this story distinctive is its narrative presentation. The narrator is portrayed as a member of the government — someone from Eisenhower's inner circle who would plausibly be a witness to the supposed events. He has recently been promoted to "special aide," a role whose job description is never clearly defined but which relates to an impending visit by the Premier of the U.S.S.R. and his wife.

Boyle uses the Cold War as a backdrop to lend the story an air of possibility. The trials and difficulties of that era are mirrored in this love story between an American and a Russian; their coming together and the culmination of their doomed relationship parallels the tense, fraught interactions of the two nations. To conceal the affair, the president places the Secret Service, CIA, FBI, and other government agencies in precarious positions. Boyle reinforces the story's claim to realism by having the narrator explain his motives for coming forward in magnanimous terms: "Because of the sensitive — indeed sensational — nature of what follows, I have endeavored to tell my story as dispassionately as possible, and must say in my own defense that my sole interest in coming forward at this late date is to provide succeeding generations with a keener insight into the events of those tumultuous times" (Ike). The most important takeaway from "Ike and Nina" is Boyle's use of historicity. Historical fiction is most effective when the historical moment feels believable, and placing a fictional narrator in the middle of events involving real, non-fictional figures makes the whole enterprise far more credible — even in a story that is, at its core, wholly unbelievable.

Rebellion and Self-Discovery in 'Greasy Lake'

"Greasy Lake" was supposedly inspired by Bruce Springsteen, a fact that illustrates how Boyle, like other artists and writers, draws inspiration from across the cultural landscape. The story opens with the epigraph "It's about a mile down the dark side of Route 88." Like "Ike and Nina," the tale is narrated in the first person, which advances the suggestion that this story — or something very much like it — could be true.

The titular lake is a gathering place for young men who want to be seen as tough and dangerous. Their rebellion is learned not from lived experience but from movies and television. As the narrator notes, "Digby had just finished a course in martial arts for phys-ed credit and had spent the better part of the past two nights telling us apocryphal tales of Bruce Lee types and of the raw power invested in lightning blows shot from coiled wrists, ankles, and elbows. The greasy character was unimpressed" (Greasy). These young men are not genuine outlaws but phony reflections of pop culture. When they encounter an actual tough guy, they are no match for him.

In the story, the narrator and his equally inept friend make two attempts at criminality — first a near-murder with a tire iron and then an attempted rape — neither of which succeeds. Yet in the failure of these acts, the narrator arrives at a kind of self-knowledge. "I was nineteen, a mere child, an infant" (Greasy). The collection in which this story appears is full of characters who confront the gap between their self-image and reality, and this narrator is no exception. The bad-boy identity he has projected is exposed as a facade, and that exposure is the real drama of the tale.

Conclusion: Character as the Heart of Boyle's Fiction

The three stories all feature a first-person narrator who injects himself into events where his own participation is relatively unimportant. In "Ike and Nina," the narrator is a witness who takes part but holds no claim to the central story. This is equally true of "When I Woke Up This Morning, Everything I Had Was Gone." In "Greasy Lake," Boyle positions the narrator differently — he is an active participant — yet the plot itself is not the point. The real story lies in the minds of the characters and in how they think about and respond to what they encounter.

What can be learned from Boyle's writing, then, is that a story begins and ends with character. A deep, intricate plot cannot compensate for a weak central character; but a strong, fully realized character can make even a simple plot resonate. This is the enduring lesson of Boyle's short fiction, and it is demonstrated with consistency and craft across all three of these stories.

Works Cited

"About the Author." Tcboyle.com. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. http://www.tcboyle.com

Boyle, T.C. "Greasy Lake." Greasy Lake and Other Stories. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Boyle, T.C. "Ike and Nina." Greasy Lake and Other Stories. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Boyle, T.C. "When I Woke Up This Morning, Everything I Had Was Gone." Tooth and Claw. New York: Penguin, 2005. Print.