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Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, or T. C. Boyle, was born in 1948 and has for several decades been a prolific and award-winning writer of novels and short stories whose works appear in translation in more than twenty languages. Published in leading magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Paris Review, Boyle is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Writer in Residence Emeritus at the University of Southern California. His own education focused on the study of literature and history, and he has often advised people who want to write to “read voluminously.” The number and diversity of allusions, literary and historical references, and pop culture details that Boyle incorporates into a story like “Greasy Lake” is one sign of the fruitfulness of his years of literary study and engagement with current culture. Boyle also records the audio for some of his works and maintains an active presence on social media platforms.
Boyle’s stories often observe and, through compelling but flawed protagonists, comment on culture and life in the United States. His early works explore the culture and beliefs of the Boomers in particular—the generation born, in the years following World War II, into a period of explosive economic growth and opportunity for many, though not all, U.S. citizens. His later works also highlight environmental issues and human disregard for nature.
Boyle has described some of the literary influences on his own work, including the Southern Gothic explorations of human nature in Flannery O’Connor’s stories and the magical realism in Gabriel García Márquez’s fiction. Boyle explains that he sometimes uses “[s]ardonic, bleak, stripped-to-the-bone humor” in fictional settings to reflect on tragic or frightening aspects of human experience, as he does in “Greasy Lake.” Comedy, he argues, can add a “poignant” and memorable overlay that readers may respond to with surprise and, perhaps, with interesting realizations about their own experience.
