T. C. Boyle
Up here in the Northwest, we take it as a matter of green faith that salmon habitat should be restored, dams removed, and our embarrassing past environmental mistakesthink of the milfoil in Lake Washingtonrectified. That same urge drives the characters in T. C. Boyles new novel When the Killings Done (Viking, $26.95), with the islands off Santa Barbara, California being the contested ground of their idealism. Pristine before man arrived, this ecosystem is compromised with rats and feral pigs. But what kind of Eden should be restored? In one camp, Boyle places a biologist with deep family connections to the islands (events hopscotch from 1946 to the present decade); shes a woman of science who believes invasive species should be eradicated. That amounts to the unethical killing of animals in the estimation of her opponents, who are led by a bipolar, dreadlocked white guy in his 40s, a home-electronics mogul who still cant give up his morning eggs. Around them is a human ecosystem of supporters, traitors, and familymost with past history on the islands. Everyone has his or her notion of perfection for the islands: as they were, as they are, as theyre remembered. And every one of these flawed peoplecall them invasive species if you willis granted dignity in Boyles expansive, generous storytelling. All strive for what the biologist experiences as the pulse of something bigger, as if all things animate were beating in unison. When the Killings Done is a novel about the battle to define that harmony. BRIAN MILLER
Tue., March 1, 7 p.m., 2011
