A Friend of the Earth T.C.Boyle

This is a pretty standard novel, but with an interesting twist. While the author insists it is not science fiction, it does take place 25 years in the future, and focuses on the environmental carnage that humans have wrought upon the planet. This makes it much more interesting as a political rant than as a story.

The best parts of the book are the speculations on what our world would be like in 2026. In California, where the story takes place, it rains and floods all the time, and most animal species have died. There are few choices of food, and no alcohol except sake. Resources are few and far between. It stinks of real possibility because the author doesn't try anything too outlandish, just common-sense ways that ordinary people would have adapted to this new environment.

The novel alternates every chapter in the future with a chapter of the main character's earlier life in the 1990s as an environmental activist. The flashbacks are told in third person while the future story unfolds in first, giving it a more in-your-face grittiness, just like that dismal future world.

The book was pretty depressing, though some parts were funny and the characters were pretty likable. The overall cynicism is not just found in the grumpy attitudes of the protagonist but in the fact that the book does not really promote any moral or lesson; it seems to say that this screwed-up future world is inevitable. And realizing our country's current environmental ignorance, this extrapolation is looking harder and harder to avoid.

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