T. C. Boyle’s ‘The Harder They Come’ is a yes-you-oughta’-read-it-now novel

Almost every time I pick up a T.C. Boyle book, I begin to wonder what kind of Faustian deal I could make that would allow me to write half as well as he does. OK, a tenth as well. (Pssst! Call me, Mephistopheles.)

Boyle’s The Harder They Come (not to be confused with Perry Henzell’s 1972 Jamaican crime film of the same name) is his fifteenth novel and twenty-fifth book. Set mostly in Northern California, it “explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character.”

The three main characters are Sten Stenson, a Vietnam vet and retired school principal, now in his 70’s, his son, Adam, and Adam’s older girlfriend, Sara.

Sten has a trigger temper. In the opening scene of the book, he and his wife are on a cruise and have signed up for a nature walk in the Costa