Scan barcode
chris387's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
skitch41's review
4.0
Nearly everyone has a dream of unplugging from the world and living off the grid. Some people even do just that. But no one tells you how isolating doing so can feel. At the heart of this book, similar to his previous book, Drop City, is people living off the grid and by the work of their own two hands. Yet, in this book, T.C. Boyle explores the isolation that can come from it. And while Boyle still continues to shine, this is one of his tamest novels.
San Miguel follows the lives of three women, Marantha, Edith, and Elise, who live on the island of San Miguel, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. Marantha and Edith are mother and adopted daughter living in the 1880s, both of whom hate living on the island their husband and father, Will, is forcing them to live and work on and each of them rebel against his heavy-handed, tyrannical rule in different ways. Elise is the wife of a World War I vet also forced to live on the island, but who genuinely loves to do so. They find a modicum of national fame during the Depression, but things begin to fall apart with the arrival of World War II. Each of these women struggle with island living in their own way, but to say more would be to give too much of the story away.
It is interesting to follow these three women around, but Boyle is known for finding absurd, real life stories to write about. But there is nothing truly absurd about any of these stories. Without that, Mr. Boyle's narrative skills don't quite take off, particularly during Marantha's story, which is the least interesting of the three. Edith's story is filled with heartbreak and excitement as she tries to escape her situation, but it is far too short. Elise's story is the best of the three, but also one of the most tragic. If you can stick through the first two women, you will be rewarded with a particularly fascinating account of the "Swiss Family Lester." However, as I said earlier, without that little absurd story detail, Mr. Boyle's narrative wit, a highlight of any of his stories, is missing. I would recommend this book to T.C. Boyle fans and historical fiction fans, but this is not one of Boyle's best.
San Miguel follows the lives of three women, Marantha, Edith, and Elise, who live on the island of San Miguel, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. Marantha and Edith are mother and adopted daughter living in the 1880s, both of whom hate living on the island their husband and father, Will, is forcing them to live and work on and each of them rebel against his heavy-handed, tyrannical rule in different ways. Elise is the wife of a World War I vet also forced to live on the island, but who genuinely loves to do so. They find a modicum of national fame during the Depression, but things begin to fall apart with the arrival of World War II. Each of these women struggle with island living in their own way, but to say more would be to give too much of the story away.
It is interesting to follow these three women around, but Boyle is known for finding absurd, real life stories to write about. But there is nothing truly absurd about any of these stories. Without that, Mr. Boyle's narrative skills don't quite take off, particularly during Marantha's story, which is the least interesting of the three. Edith's story is filled with heartbreak and excitement as she tries to escape her situation, but it is far too short. Elise's story is the best of the three, but also one of the most tragic. If you can stick through the first two women, you will be rewarded with a particularly fascinating account of the "Swiss Family Lester." However, as I said earlier, without that little absurd story detail, Mr. Boyle's narrative wit, a highlight of any of his stories, is missing. I would recommend this book to T.C. Boyle fans and historical fiction fans, but this is not one of Boyle's best.
ladyr's review
3.0
This is actually 3.5 stars.
This is my first novel by Boyle and most likely wont be the last as it is beautifully written.
It doesn't get 4 stars as really it reads more like a piece of historical narrative - and I found it lacking in plot at times. However his writing style makes up for that and I started to enjoy the book more once I realised there was no major plot and also that the characters' lives within the novel are not intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 2 and 3 much more than the first which was just too bleak and depressing a subject matter for me. By the time I got onto Elise's story however I was racing through it.
I wish that for each of the main characters Boyle had given us more insight into how their stories and lives ended up as each one seemed to stop just as the main action got going but in saying that the whole point of the novel is about life on the island of San Miguel itself so to have carried on the stories would in some ways serve little purpose.
A enjoyable read.
This is my first novel by Boyle and most likely wont be the last as it is beautifully written.
It doesn't get 4 stars as really it reads more like a piece of historical narrative - and I found it lacking in plot at times. However his writing style makes up for that and I started to enjoy the book more once I realised there was no major plot and also that the characters' lives within the novel are not intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 2 and 3 much more than the first which was just too bleak and depressing a subject matter for me. By the time I got onto Elise's story however I was racing through it.
I wish that for each of the main characters Boyle had given us more insight into how their stories and lives ended up as each one seemed to stop just as the main action got going but in saying that the whole point of the novel is about life on the island of San Miguel itself so to have carried on the stories would in some ways serve little purpose.
A enjoyable read.
bookedbymadeline's review against another edition
A bit too slow for me and writing style isn’t to my taste. Interesting story line though
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness
jules_cr's review
4.0
Lovely melancholy set of stories linked by San Miguel island. I think T. C. Boyle does best when rewriting the stories of true events.
moreadsbooks's review
4.0
God bless you, T.C. Boyle & your wondrous, sweeping, swooping run-on sentences.
“It was anger – and despair, that too – that gave her the strength to strip the bedding and tear the curtains from their hooks, to ball them up and fling them on the floor for Ida, because what was he thinking, how could he ever imagine she’d regain her strength in a freezing hovel like this as if she were some sort of milkmaid in a bucolic romance?”
Or this: “She watched the sun rise out of the mountains down the shoreline to her left, and that was strange too, because all her life she’d known it to emerge from the waters of Long Island Sound, a quivering yellow disk like the separated yolk of an egg, the waves running away to the horizon and shifting from black to gray and finally to the clean undiluted blue of the sky above – if the sun was shining, that is.”
No one can do it like you, T.C., when you're on you're so totally on, and I love you for it. Thanks a lot.
This book revisits the island of San Miguel, a looming character of sorts in the background of Boyle's last novel When The Killing's Done. This is told from the 1880s perspective of Marantha Waters & then her daughter Edith, as they follow Marantha's husband to the island so he can run a sheep ranching operation & also, hopefully, so Marantha will be cured of her consumption.She's not. After her death, teenage Edith is taken out of school & forced back to the island by her stepfather, where he can keep an eye on her. Here's the thing, though, stepfather of Edith - if you treat teenage girls like prisoners because you don't want them cavorting with boys, they will do anything in their power, up to & including cavorting with boys, in order to get out from under your thumb. Then the book shifts to the 1930s and Elise Lester & her husband taking over the sheep ranch & their lives as the "Swiss Family Lester" out in the middle of nowhere with their eventual children.
Elise's part was the hardest to read because it frankly got sort of boring. While Marantha hates the island & is coughing up blood & being dramatic all the time, & Edith hates the island too & is woeful & impassioned as only teenage girls can be (and willing to resort to some pretty painful things to get away), Elise's life is idyllic & happy & routine. Her husband Herbie appears to be bipolar but other than a few mentions of him being "blue" he's a lot more about the happy mania than anything. Sadly though, Elise ends up being the most profound story of all.Sometimes I'm pretty naive & I will ignore foreshadowing, so I admit I was a little shocked when I finally realized what poor Herbie was up to. The novel ends thus: ”She knew that luck gave out. And she knew that there was nothing to keep, nothing to hold on to, that it all came to nothing in the end," & if that doesn't make you want to cry a little & go give someone you love a hug, than I don't know what will.
“It was anger – and despair, that too – that gave her the strength to strip the bedding and tear the curtains from their hooks, to ball them up and fling them on the floor for Ida, because what was he thinking, how could he ever imagine she’d regain her strength in a freezing hovel like this as if she were some sort of milkmaid in a bucolic romance?”
Or this: “She watched the sun rise out of the mountains down the shoreline to her left, and that was strange too, because all her life she’d known it to emerge from the waters of Long Island Sound, a quivering yellow disk like the separated yolk of an egg, the waves running away to the horizon and shifting from black to gray and finally to the clean undiluted blue of the sky above – if the sun was shining, that is.”
No one can do it like you, T.C., when you're on you're so totally on, and I love you for it. Thanks a lot.
This book revisits the island of San Miguel, a looming character of sorts in the background of Boyle's last novel When The Killing's Done. This is told from the 1880s perspective of Marantha Waters & then her daughter Edith, as they follow Marantha's husband to the island so he can run a sheep ranching operation & also, hopefully, so Marantha will be cured of her consumption.
Elise's part was the hardest to read because it frankly got sort of boring. While Marantha hates the island & is coughing up blood & being dramatic all the time, & Edith hates the island too & is woeful & impassioned as only teenage girls can be (and willing to resort to some pretty painful things to get away), Elise's life is idyllic & happy & routine. Her husband Herbie appears to be bipolar but other than a few mentions of him being "blue" he's a lot more about the happy mania than anything. Sadly though, Elise ends up being the most profound story of all.
tdeshler's review
4.0
Having lived in Santa Barbara for several years, I'm familiar with the Channel Islands, but only as a place to go diving or hiking by permit. I wasn't familiar with the ranching history, so that part was quite interesting. I appreciated that much of the story was told from female character's perspective. I think Edith's story was the most dramatic, but both family tales were enjoyable.
ifersinklings's review
4.0
My only complaint is that we didn’t really get to see what happened to the Waters family. I would have liked to have their story more complete like those of the Lester family.
randykraft's review
4.0
T. C. Boyle writes about interesting people, often based on real people as in this novel, most often set in his native California, like the Channel Islands in his more recent novel, When the Killing’s Done, and in this case San Miguel off Santa Barbara. There is a little bit of a history lesson embedded in his work, but never overbearing. The backstories underscore the human stories, and his people in one way or another struggle and love passionately and hurt deeply and reach out for more or suffer with demons… all the stuff that fills good fiction.
I have been a fan for many years and Boyle rarely disappoints. I prefer his novels to his stories, which are far more macabre although also often very funny, and he has published several collections.
San Miguel, published last fall [and finally got to the top of my pile] is quieter, far less irony or intricacy, as it profiles three women’s lives, and the men in them, over sixty years on the deserted island. Not as big a plot punch as for example my personal favorites, Tortilla Curtain and Riven Rock, or the sophisticated history of Frank Lloyd Wright in The Women, but just as satisfying, because Boyle always writes with clarity and elegance and holds you as if he were telling you the story over a campfire. The descriptions of foliage and sky, animals and sea life, cliffs and trees, as well as people, are just plain mesmerizing.
Miranda arrives at late in the 19th century with her stoic husband and adopted daughter in the hopes of a miracle cure for her tuberculosis; daughter Edith, a bit of a wild child, returns reluctantly, hostage to her stepfather until she can make her escape; and Elise arrives during the depression, and stays until WW II, a woman from east coast privilege who comes with her charismatic husband to embrace the simple life.
Each character has a different relationship with the island, which is much more of a character than landscape, and with the one person who knows them all: a lonely workhand named Jimmy.
If you would like to sink into a good old-fashioned novel with characters that quickly come to life and beautiful prose and a thoughtful view of so-called civilization, read San Miguel. Boyle is a modern-day Tolstoy, just a whole lot hipper. Read his backlist! Learn more at www.tcboyle.com.
I have been a fan for many years and Boyle rarely disappoints. I prefer his novels to his stories, which are far more macabre although also often very funny, and he has published several collections.
San Miguel, published last fall [and finally got to the top of my pile] is quieter, far less irony or intricacy, as it profiles three women’s lives, and the men in them, over sixty years on the deserted island. Not as big a plot punch as for example my personal favorites, Tortilla Curtain and Riven Rock, or the sophisticated history of Frank Lloyd Wright in The Women, but just as satisfying, because Boyle always writes with clarity and elegance and holds you as if he were telling you the story over a campfire. The descriptions of foliage and sky, animals and sea life, cliffs and trees, as well as people, are just plain mesmerizing.
Miranda arrives at late in the 19th century with her stoic husband and adopted daughter in the hopes of a miracle cure for her tuberculosis; daughter Edith, a bit of a wild child, returns reluctantly, hostage to her stepfather until she can make her escape; and Elise arrives during the depression, and stays until WW II, a woman from east coast privilege who comes with her charismatic husband to embrace the simple life.
Each character has a different relationship with the island, which is much more of a character than landscape, and with the one person who knows them all: a lonely workhand named Jimmy.
If you would like to sink into a good old-fashioned novel with characters that quickly come to life and beautiful prose and a thoughtful view of so-called civilization, read San Miguel. Boyle is a modern-day Tolstoy, just a whole lot hipper. Read his backlist! Learn more at www.tcboyle.com.
ellenmoonlitstories's review
4.0
It's not the easiest book to read and it took me a while to finish it.
It's been a while since I read it but I can still remember a lot of the story.
The beauty and difficulties of living on a remote island. Having to depend on other people to bring you food.
But having the whole place to yourself at the same time..
I really liked it.
It's been a while since I read it but I can still remember a lot of the story.
The beauty and difficulties of living on a remote island. Having to depend on other people to bring you food.
But having the whole place to yourself at the same time..
I really liked it.