When The Killing's Done

I just finished this book in a long rush of interest.  This is another book I would never have read if it hadn't been chosen by our book club.  I think I've read a short story or two in the New Yorker by Boyle, but always felt he was just one of those hip writers who wouldn't be my cup of tea.  Now I will definitely look up another of his books.  I like his long asides that include all sorts of random thoughts, joking references, histories.  His basic story is pretty clear cut -- a contest between someone who wants to restore an ecosystem and one who thinks it is not worth while if animals are killed in the process.  The former is Alma, the latter is Dave.  It seems that both antagonists come to question their own sureness about what they are doing -- but not enough to stop them.  The novel twists back and forth in time -- which I found confusing, but manageable.  There are some dark and ugly scenes of almost unbearable violence. There is an interesting article on Boyle in the  British publication, The Guardian (it is worth looking up)in which Boyle says:

"'Life is tragic and absurd and none of it has any purpose at all." He is sitting contentedly with a glass of wine in the west room of his Frank Lloyd Wright house in Montecito, California. "Science has killed religion, there's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all."

I liked the sense of place he conjured up -- the islands themselves, the cities of Montecito and Santa Barbara. I liked his descriptions and evocation of his characters.  So the book had his philosophy spelled out - tragic, absurd and funny.



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