The Harder They Come audiobook

Here was guilt. Here was the shit of the world coming home to roost right here in the redwoods. A part of the American mind has been off its meds for a very long time. There are some fine specimens of the syndrome tramping through the landscape in TC Boyle’s latest novel, The Harder They Come. Sara Hovart Jennings, 40, divorced, lives with her dog and her paranoia. Was she wearing her seatbelt? No, she wasn’t, and she was never going to wear it either. Seatbelt laws were just another contrivance of the U.S. Illegitimate Government of America the corporate that had given up the gold standard back in 1933 and pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow and keep on borrowing. But she wasn’t a citizen of the U.S.I.G.A, she was a sovereign citizen, a U.S. national, born and raised, and she didn’t now and never would again acknowledge anybody’s illegitimate authority over her. She makes a living helping take care of horses and other animals on the northern California coast. Sara is more a garden-variety crank than a certifiable one. There was talk on the radio, but it was mainly left-wing Communist crap-NPR, and how was it their signal was stronger than anybody else’s? Adam Stensen is more the latter sort, mid 20s, hitchhiking, late of a local institution for the very nervous. Sara picks him up. Adam has issues. His grasp on reality is less than firm. He calls himself Colter, for John Colter, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, considered by many the first mountain man. The border between Adam’s reality as Adam and his reality as Colter is way too permeable. TC Boyle - from his site Sten Stensen, 70, a Viet Nam veteran and retired school principal offers an example of the traditional Protestant work ethic. He’d been up early all his life and though everybody said the best thing about retirement was sleeping in, he just couldn’t feature it. If he found himself in bed later than six, he felt like a degenerate, and he supposed he could thank his mother for that. And his father. The work ethic—once you had it, once it had been implanted in you, how could you shake it? Why would you want to? He and his wife, Carolee, were on a group tour in Costa Rica. The bus driver who drove them to a remote location may or may not have been in on it, but after getting off the bus the group is accosted by several armed men and robbed of their possessions. At least that was the plan. Sten, away from the group when the action begins, gets the drop on a gun-toting bandit and kills him. The other robbers flee. Sten returns home a hero. Boyle’s northern California is a place living in fear, of BIG government, of Mexican drug runners and drug growers, of foreigners. That fear plays a big part in the story of Adam’s surrender to madness. Violence plays a huge role as well. The story of Adam/Colter’s descent is a gripping, moving, and frightening one. But, as in most good stories, there is another layer. Boyle opens the book with a quote from D.H. Lawrence The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. Boyle has been looking at that soul for a while. His vision of it remains interesting. It is not a pretty sight. In straight narrative sections he gives us an up close and personal look at the historical Colter contending with existential 19th century threats. America was a challenging environment, whether for its early residents enduring a European invasion or for explorers taking on the risk of encountering actual hostiles in parts of the continent that were not under European/American rule. Of course, like so much of history, American and other, the details can be lost over time while the idealized image remains. See, for example, Supreme Court justices basing decisions on mythical, lumped-together, founders, while the fact is that those founders were a contentious lot who disagreed about most things. History as fantasy is as rich a seam in the American lode as is violence. Adam has fixated on one such fantasy, glorifying hardship. As a result he cannot reconcile his image of the archetypal independent mountain man with the fact that Colter actually returned to civilization after six years away and settled down. Adam, like much of America, has failed to learn from the lessons of the past.Sten’s actions in Costa Rica, justified or not, echo his, and his country’s, army experience in Viet Nam, Americans in the jungle, killing natives. Boyle is known for his satire and Sara is nothing if not an exaggeration (hopefully) of an extreme segment of the national psychosis. At least she is not out shooting people. Adam, before diving even farther off the deep end, built a wall around the place where he was living, his grandmother’s home. He does not even build a door to allow entry and exit. (Maybe he had some help from The Donald?) It is hard not to smile at this concrete manifestation of isolationism. He sees hostiles everywhere, which is merely aberrant when he is going about his business, but manifestly dangerous when his paranoia combines with automatic weapons. (Think Ditto-heads with Glocks, or stand-your-ground vigilantes in Florida) The notion of invasion is considered. The original Colter was nothing if not an invader of Native American land. The US invaded Viet Nam, and most Meso-American countries, among other places. The American tourists in Costa Rica might be considered invaders of a sort. But the tables are turned as Mexicans are seen as invaders of American territory. A local couple run a reserve for non-native endangered species, another sort of invasion, perhaps.The general terrain is one Boyle knows, a not-long drive from his residence in Santa Barbara. There’s plenty of crazy up in them thar hills. One of the things that dogs Boyle’s writing it that it is tough to relate to many of his characters. The same applies here. If you are hard-core, biochemically delusional you may relate to Adam. The rest of us are mostly limited to observing him. Despite her quirks, Sara is actually an appealing character and we don’t want to see her come to harm. She is more crazy-aunt nuts than Adam’s more virulent form. She seems to have a good heart.The satire and attempt to understand the American psyche may be major elements in Boyle’s oeuvre, and they are present here in abundance, but if the story is not engaging, it all goes for naught. Happily, Boyle does know how to engage readers and keep his story rumbling through. There is certainly some fun in the satirical elements but there is also considerable action throughout. The tale moves quickly. You will definitely not be bored. I have no idea of the title of the book was meant to reference Jimmy Cliff beyond a bit of weed in common.I have read only a small sample of Boyle’s body of work. Budding Prospects, When the Killing's Done, probably a short story collection, so I cannot really place this among his works for a compare and contrast. I do believe it is a better book than WTKD. I was reminded of a 2014 book that also looked at an extreme national element, Fourth of July Creek, but while their subject matter intersects, they are very different stories.So, bottom line, an interesting tale, well told and with some perspective on larger issues. What’s not to like?Trade Paperback released March 1, 2016 =============================EXTRA STUFFSeptember 21, 2015 - The Harder They Come is named to the Carnegie Awards LonglistIn a piece on Boyle in The Guardian the author talks about his relationship with the digital world. I'm not on Twitter or Facebook. My website contains my blog going back 13 years. It requires a good deal of my attention and serves the purpose of Twitter and Facebook for me as far as connecting with and providing information to the public. I like to disconnect and experience life outside the electronic media and other machines that control and limit our lives. I like to go out into nature, whether here at home where I am a short walk from the beach and a longer one to the mountains that frame Santa Barbara, or up in the Sequoia National Forest, where I spend several months a year, beyond the reach of cable, email and the internet. What I'm talking about is unplugging and enjoying some contemplative time, sitting by a waterfall deep in the woods with a book and the sights and scents of nature. I think people are "deep reading" less these days and it concerns me. We are so distracted that we've lost the habit of being idle. How can you engage with a novel if you're plugged in constantly?Thomas John Boyle changed his middle name to “Coraghessan” when he was 17, a nod to his Irish heritage and away from the less interesting middle name he had been given at birth. He stopped using it years ago and is now TC on his books, and Tom to friends.Here is a nice piece on Boyle from the Encyclopedia of World BiographyAn interview in the Paris ReviewA wiki on the Redemption Theory that Sara is so taken with A lovely review from Michiko Kakutani of the NY TimesLest you think Sara Hovart Jennings is a purely fictional construct, this AP report on a woman arrested for invading the Capitol on Desecration Day, January 6, 2021, suggests otherwise - Capitol riot arrest of restaurant owner rattles hometown by Michael Kunzelman - July 28, 2021

What do you do when your delusional twenty-five-year-old son - who's paranoid about 'hostiles' (Mexicans, other foreigners, and especially 'the Chinese') - becomes destructive and violent? That's the problem faced by Sten Stensen, a retired high school principal and Vietnam vet, and Sten's wife Caro

The Harder They Come revolves around three characters: Sten, a 70 year-old retired school principal and Vietnam vet; his mentally unbalanced son, Adam, 25 years old; and 40 year old paranoid libertarian Sara. Set in present-day Fort Bragg, California, the novel sees Adam’s mind slowly unravelling as he becomes more and more obsessed with historical figure John Colter, a scout on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Adam’s untreated schizophrenia, exacerbated by liquor and hard drugs, can only end one way once he grabs his gun and heads into the woods.I’m going to avoid spoilers because it’ll be a more powerful read if you go into it blind. The Harder They come is a brilliant novel. Like many of TC Boyle’s books, this one explores a number of issues, though violent American culture is at the forefront. Not just the United States’ gun culture (and yes he is rightfully critical of it), but the legacy of violence that reaches back to the early days of the Republic.The Colter flashbacks to the beginning of the 19th century remind us that Americans were once the underdogs and the Native Americans were dominant – a fact that would swiftly change as the century wore on. Sten is a veteran of Vietnam, a theatre of war that was an extension of American Imperialism from the last century, and Sara is extremely belligerent towards local and federal authority for, as she sees it, limiting her freedoms as a citizen. Adam, the youngest character in the cast, embodies all of those characters as a terrifying avatar of confused, but very real, carnage – a modern day wannabe mountain man waging his forest warfare on the government.For a relatively limited cast, Boyle covers an enormous number of subjects, weaving them into his narrative effortlessly: Mexican drug manufacturers destroying rural California, contemporary mental issues and their treatment (as well as lack of), gun control, extreme right wing politics, as well as more broad, traditional subjects like the differences between generations, fathers and sons, and the complexities of love.The chapters alternate between Sten, Sara and Adam, and the only part of the book I didn’t totally enjoy were some of Adam’s chapters once he loses it. Boyle writes these adopting the viewpoint of a paranoid schizophrenic off of his prescribed medicine and self-medicating with numerous illegal drugs (cocaine, meth, opium). These chapters are appropriately rambling, circuitous, and diverge at peculiar tangents, as this is supposedly Adam’s disordered mind, but it still made for some uninteresting passages. That and the ending – Boyle going on for just a few more pages than he should have.Otherwise, Boyle’s writing, characterisations, set pieces? Superb. Boyle always produces outstanding prose and his storytelling is rich and gripping. Each character is their own person with their own voice and world and the plot unfolds beautifully and tragically. It’s a fantastic story – a real literary thriller - from a modern master. The Harder They come is another excellent addition to this tremendously gifted writer’s remarkable oeuvre.(The novel is inspired by the 2011 case of Aaron Bassler however if you’re planning on reading this book, I would recommend not looking up his details until afterwards as Boyle parallels Bassler’s last few weeks with Adam’s very closely. For that matter, if you don’t know much about John Colter, I wouldn’t look him up until after either – the Colter passages will be much more exciting as a result.)

I liked it but......but I have burned my memory thoroughly looking for characters as distasteful and contemptuous as this lot. Stem and Carolee? What a couple of annoying cliches. Adam, okay, see of him I get (as a career high school teacher, I've known several Adams although none ever ended up like this), so I enjoyed him the.most.Now for the worst ass I've read about in years: Sara! What an absolute idiot. What a cliche she became. Knowing Adam was bad made her hot? If she gave him a hot meal, maybe she could tame him? Leapin' lizards, what YEAR is this? I wanted to reach through the pages and shake her really hard.I have no contract with Sara.

“The Harder They Come” is an intense novel. The subject matter is intense and T.C. Boyle allows all the ugliness of the human condition to prevail, without any comic relief. I’ve never read any novels by Boyle, and I’ll put him on my radar for other novels.It’s told from three protagonist: Sten, who is a retired Principal and ex-Marine; his mentally ill son, Adam; and Sara, a woman in her late thirties who doesn’t take to authority figures “But she wasn’t a citizen of the USIGA (United States Illegitimate Government of America), she was a sovereign citizen, a US national, born and raised, and she didn’t now and never would again acknowledge anybody’s illegitimate authority over her…so no, she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. And she didn’t have legal plates”. Sten is the sanest of the trio; all he wants to do is retire in peace with his wife Carolee.Unfortunately for Sten, Adam is quickly deteriorating from sanity. The chapters from Adam’s point of view are difficult to follow, because Adam is nuts, although not diagnosed in the novel, most likely schizophrenic. He thinks he’s John Colter, the mountain man who helped Lewis and Clark. He’s delusional and sees everyone as aliens.Sara and Adam lives collide and form a very unhealthy bond. Sara unwittingly harbors Adam, and allows his odd behavior.Although Adam is over 18, and Sten and Carolee can do nothing to help him with his mental illness, the community blames them for the actions of Adam. The novel is an interesting study of community judgment, mental health problems, and the survivalists who want nothing to do with Governmental laws. It’s a brutally honest novel with no frivolity. It’s authentic and realistic fiction of the human condition.

THE HARDER THEY COMET. C. BoyleFour stars because I love T.C. Boyle and his insights into the American psyche in fantastic prose and narrative. He is the keeper of the flame in helping us understand human nature, some of the origins of violence and the often tragic results.The four characters in the book are not necessarily people I care for, but most especially Sara who is unbelievably set in her ways and most of them are anti everything except a lover who is fifteen years younger and exceptionally mentally handicapped. Mr. Boyle always challenges us to a greater understanding of ourselves, our values and the values of our country. I champion him and his deep commitment to looking at the greater issues. He brings them out into the light and lets you form your own ideas and to mull over the way you feel.By way of the highest praise, I don’t know if THE TORTILLA CURTAIN will ever be topped in his large repertoire.Always thought provoking and a good read, Mr. Boyle, thank you.

The Harder They Come is a near perfect fiction. The characters are believable. The subject matters. The themes are solid and not in your face. Boyle explores an America that is compared to an America that was. We look at Viet Nam, the new right, old age, mental instability, immigration, crime, tourism. All are found wanting in the four main characters. Adam, the environmentalist warrior, is a totally believable character cut out of the full cloth of disaffecting and disaffective contemporary youth. Following him is like watching a Greek tragedy unfold. Yes, we know the ending already, but watching how we get there never fails to thrill us. His father represents the failure of rage that made the Viet Nam war and which now fuels the golf links. Adam’s mother is a study in subtleness of expression and living.: the life not well led. That could be applied to them all. Sara, the most interesting of the bunch, is a slipped wing nut who is a large bosomed combo of Lucy Ball and Emma Goldberg. Never once does Boyle lose control of some very complex structural devices. Never once is he at odds with his language. T.C. Boyle has written a very important work.

For the 30 years that I've been reading the works of T. C. Boyle, he has never let me down. His unbridled curiosity has led him to write clear, unsentimental, non-cliched books that go down so smoothly, I'm usually surprised that I've reached the end. Whether it's the Kinseys, 1970's era hippies, settlers on islands rearing sheep or the wives of Frank Lloyd Wright, he imbues his well researched books with characters who find themselves dealing with unexpected situations in unexpected ways. This latest, a contemporary examination into lives that are complex, exasperating, and horrifying, held me from page one until the end.

THE HARDER THEY COME, by T.C. Boyle is a realistic character driven plot centred around three main characters; Sten, Adam and Sara. This is a compelling tale about the relationship between these flawed damaged people, and touches on some complex often contradictory moral issues from various perspectives.Seventy year old ex-marine, Vietnam veteran Sten is reluctantly hailed a hero when, on vacation to Central America with his wife, he disarms and kills a mugger, one of a gang that has been menacing elderly tourists during group tour stops made in Costa Rica.Sten is uncomfortable at first with the praise and hero status he receives from his fellow holiday makers and from people when he returns home to Northern California. Inevitably Sten accepts the complimentary drinks and praises, but then faces the polemic emotional extreme when his own son Adam kills two people.Sara, a 40 something divorcee, is a believer in the anti authoritarian movement and manages to get herself into trouble with the law on a pretty minor issue, refusing to wear a seat belt. In the process her much loved dog is impounded and she is taken into cells. Upon release she picks up a young hitchhiker, Adam, and rants about the law and how she's going to get her dog back.Adam, a loner and self trained survivalist in his 20's has serious mental health issues. He calls himself Colter and has adopted the lifestyle of his role model.Sara's paranoia and Adam's schizophrenia is a volatile mix and as Adam becomes increasingly more unstable and loses his grip on reality. It's only a matter of time before events spiral to an explosive and violent tragedy.Highly recommended. 'The Harder They Come' left me thinking about things long after turning the final page. I thoroughly enjoyed this read and learned a little about John Colter the original mountain man in the 19th Century. This is my first T.C. Boyle novel but most certainly not my last.Disclaimer: I received a digital copy from the Publisher for an honest, unbiased review.

It is a biblical theme, the disagreement between the father and the son. Nevertheless there is love at father. Sten was marine in Viet Nam, which in 70 years still succeeds in behaving like a hero at the beginning of the book. The fragile, paranoiac, unstable son takes himself for a trapper of XIX °. The meeting with an older woman is going to transform him. He radicalized himself. The end can be only tragic. I thought of this painting of Rembrandt, " The return of the prodigal son ". This one who got angry with his father returns and he is kindly welcomed with love by him. His expression on the face is incredible, quite different than the rigourous carachter on the right, somewhere his double. But here no return. Sten remains alone, with his suffering and his guilt.It is solid, written well. I hesitated between 4 or 5 stars.

I don't need flash, irony, literary tricks and deceptions. I just want a great story told by a master storyteller and Mr. Boyle is one of our best. I liked his last one, flew through this one, and will wait (mostly) patiently for the next.