{"product_id":"blue-skies-t-c-boyle-9798212707312","title":"Blue Skies","description":"\u003cp\u003eDenied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like \"jewelry, living jewelry\" to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young \"Burmie\" she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire and outrageous events that comes to threaten her very survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Brilliantly imaginative ... in a terrifying way\" (Annie Proulx), Blue Skies follows in the tradition of T. C. Boyle's finest novels, combining high-octane plotting with mordant wit and shrewd social commentary. Here Boyle, one of the most inventive voices in contemporary fiction, transports us to water-logged and heat-ravaged coastal America, where Cat and her hapless, nature-loving family--including her eco-warrior parents, Ottilie and Frank; her brother, Cooper, an entomologist; and her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd--are struggling to adapt to the \"new normal,\" in which once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters happen once a week and drinking seems to be the only way to cope.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut there's more than meets the eye to this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century Californians and Floridians attempting to preserve normalcy in the face of violent weather perturbations is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet's future. From pet bees and cricket-dependent diets to species die-off and pummeling hurricanes, Blue Skies deftly explores the often volatile relationships between humans and their habitats, in which \"the only truism seems to be that things always get worse.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn eco-thriller with teeth, Boyle's Blue Skies is at once a tragicomic satire and a prescient novel that captures the absurdity and \"inexpressible sadness at the heart of everything.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e T. C. Boyle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 8212707318\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798212707312\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Recorded Books, Inc.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/16\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e CD\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.57lbs","brand":"T. C. Boyle","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44716229263615,"sku":"9798212707312","price":57.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a1cfe31e-8f2b-4415-914a-3975a60f177c.jpg?v=1705681483","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/blue-skies-t-c-boyle-9798212707312","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}