Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel
Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's
powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a
socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the
dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the
natural world. Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service
biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the
island's endangered native creatures from invasive species
like rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be
eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked
local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger
Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any
species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the
plans of Alma and her colleagues.
Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating
scenes in which these characters violently confront one
another, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature
itself. Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to
relate the harrowing tale of Alma's grandmother Beverly, who
was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as
well as the tragic story of Anise's mother, Rita, who in the
late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz
Island. In dramatizing this collision between protectors of
the environment and animal rights' activists, Boyle is, in
his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential
questions of our time: Who has the right of possession of
the land, the waters, the very lives of all the creatures
who share this planet with us? When the Killing's Done will
offer no transparent answers, but like The Tortilla Curtain,
Boyle's classic take on illegal immigration, it will touch
you deeply and put you in a position to decide.
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