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    The Harder They Come: A Novel
    The Harder They Come: A Novel
    The Harder They Come: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Harder They Come: A Novel

    Written by T.C. Boyle

    Narrated by Graham Hamilton

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author T.C. Boyle makes his Ecco debut with a powerful, gripping novel that explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character.

    Set in contemporary Northern California, The Harder They Come explores the volatile connections between three damaged people—an aging ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran, his psychologically unstable son, and the son's paranoid, much older lover—as they careen towards an explosive confrontation.

    On a vacation cruise to Central America with his wife, seventy-year-old Sten Stensen unflinchingly kills a gun-wielding robber menacing a busload of senior tourists. The reluctant hero is relieved to return home to Fort Bragg, California, after the ordeal—only to find that his delusional son, Adam, has spiraled out of control.

    Adam has become involved with Sara Hovarty Jennings, a hardened member of the Sovereign Citizens’ Movement, right-wing anarchists who refuse to acknowledge the laws and regulations of the state, considering them to be false and non-applicable. Adam’s senior by some fifteen years, Sara becomes his protector and inamorata. As Adam's mental state fractures, he becomes increasingly schizophrenic—a breakdown that leads him to shoot two people in separate instances. On the run, he takes to the woods, spurring the biggest manhunt in California history.

    As he explores a father’s legacy of violence and his powerlessness in relating to his equally violent son, T. C. Boyle offers unparalleled psychological insights into the American psyche. Inspired by a true story, The Harder They Come is a devastating and indelible novel from a modern master.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 31, 2015
    ISBN9780062373700
    Author

    T.C. Boyle

    T.C. Boyle is an American novelist and short-story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twelve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988 for his third novel, World’s End, and the Prix Médicis étranger (France) in 1995 for The Tortilla Curtain. His novel Drop City was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Award. Most recently, he has been the recipient of the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the Henry David Thoreau Prize, and the Jonathan Swift Prize for satire. He is a Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California and lives in Santa Barbara.

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    Reviews for The Harder They Come

    4/5

    22 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A BRILLIANT STORYTELLER ALWAYS WEAVING THE DIFFERENT NARRATIVES TOWARDS THE INEVITABLE TUMULTUOUS CLIMAX
    • 2/5
      The characters are too negative and disturbing. Well written, but why should I read about these people. Quit about a third of the way through.
    • 3/5
      I'm having trouble deciding what exactly this book is supposed to be about. There are retirees involved, Costa Rican criminals, people who reject the US government, a violent young man who is obviously somewhere on the autism spectrum, local small town police swat teams, Mexican drug dealers/growers, and sundry other characters. Their activities intersect at one point or another, but is it an anti-violence book? A pro-immigration one? Anti-government? Any one of a number of other possible themes that may or may not be embedded in the story? Who knows?

      I've enjoyed Boyle's writing in the past and this book is well-written and certainly interesting to experience, but I usually like to have a feel for where the plot is going and why it's going there. Didn't happen with this one.
    • 4/5
      Eine neues Buch von T.C.Boyle, einem meiner Lieblingsautoren, – und ich bin gestern gerade fertig geworden.Erstaunlicherweise ist der Roman auf Deutsch Ende Februar einen Monat früher erschienen als in der Originalsprache. Wieso das so ist, konnte ich noch nicht herausfinden. Vielleicht hat Boyle ein besonders treues Publikum im deutschsprachigen Bereich?Die Beschreibungen, die ich über “The Harder They Come” gelesen habe, passen eigentlich nicht. Es geht weder um die dunkle Seite des USA, noch um eine Liebesgeschichte zwischen zwei Menschen, die innerhalb der Gesellschaft und des staatlichen Systems keinen Platz für sich finden. Vielmehr blickt man einzelnen Menschen tief in ihre Psyche hinab, teils von außen als BeobachterIn, teils von innen. Sie reiben sich an Normen, Regeln und Lebensweisen und Institutionen, die sie nicht als die ihren betrachten können und man kann nachvollziehen, warum das so ist. Boyle gelingt es, Personen verständlich zu machen, die eigentlich nicht verstanden werden können: Warum will Sarah, die Schmiedin, sich partout nicht anschnallen oder ihren Führerschein bei einer Fahrzeuganhaltung nicht vorweisen? Sarah trägt ihr Herz auf der Zunge und redet sich um fast alles. Sprachlosigkeit hingegen kennzeichnet Adam. Warum spricht erkaum und trägt immer Waffen mit sich herum? Wie weit habe sich Adams Eltern schon von ihrem psychopathischen Sohn abgegrenzt? Wann ist man ein Held, wann ein Mörder?“Hart auf hart” ist ein Buch, das ich nicht gern hinter mir zurücklasse. Es ist eines von denen, die mich länger begleiten und nach denen ich ein paar Tage warten muss, bis ich das nächste beginne.
    • 4/5
      I picked this book up because of the author and a quick scan of the cover. I had visited the area of California this was written about. I was fascinated about how unlike the rest of California (I thought) this area was... The area is the rectangle of land taking in Mendocino to Fort Bragg and one the east, the redwoods, Willets and Ukiah. These were all the towns I had visited and wondered about what it was like to live there... especially Willets and Fort Bragg.So, I thought, I will get a picture of life in the area through the lens of T. C. Boyle who knows how to write a good book.The book starts out, when Fort Bragg residents Sten and Carolee are on vacation in Costa Rica and meet with violence. Sten is a former military guy and reacts with force... This sets the theme of the book as this violence is not the first encounter these parents have known. This seemingly unrelated incident sets the stage of their life back home in Fort Bragg. If they were going home after a bad vacation, they were not going to find it any better back home in Fort Bragg.There are many themes in this book, making it a little messy. The main theme is a nuclear dysfunctional family living in semi isolation in a small community with a problem child. Other themes about illegal pot/opium growing (a regional problem) and illegal immigrants and cartel people are present in this book. The author tries to show the lifestyles of some people who have incomes from being self-employed in an area where it is hard to make a living, a land of have and have nots, seasonal work, gigs... The stable jobs are working for the schools (teaching, teaching aides) or working for the police or a government agency. All of this does get in the way of the story of Adam a bit, but it works for me to describe the area and its residents. It is the underside he is trying to write about. The novel is very dark and gloomy, as dark as the forests in the area.
    • 4/5
      As this book opens, Sten and his wife Carolee are on a shore excursion from their Central American cruise. They are at a nature preserve in the jungle when a band of robbers demands that the group of travelers from the ship turn over their valuables. Something in Sten cracks, and he reverts to his training as a Marine in the Vietnam war. He grabs the leader of the robbers, the one with the gun, in a choke hold, and the other robbers flee. When it ends, the robber is dead, and Sten becomes an unlikely (and uncomfortable) hero.After this prologue, the book is set in Mendocino California, where Sten is a retired school principal, and it focuses on Sten, his mentally disturbed son Adam, and Adam's much older lover Sarah, who has some pretty crazy ideas herself. Adam sees himself as a "mountain man," like John Colter, a historical figure. Sarah is an extreme libertarian, and ignores some of Adam's more schizophrenic behaviors. Sten and Carolee have suffered the anguish of trying to help Adam for years (unsuccessfully), and are now at the end of their rope. Tied in to the tragedy of these characters are issues relating to illegal immigration, drug use, the violence, particularly gun violence that seems endemic in American culture, the Homeland Security paranoia Americans seem to currently suffer, and other issues of our present day culture.I liked this book a lot. However, while the prologue provided insight into Sten's character, I'm not sure that it added much to the issues that were the focus of the book, and I'm puzzled as to why Boyle included it. Apparently, it was based on a true event that occurred several years ago.Recommended4 stars
    • 4/5
      Coincidentally, like the last book I read, this novel features the wilderness as setting and raison d’etre for one of the characters, who also coincidentally, is mentally ill. And like the last novel I read, this one features a relationship between a 20-something man and a 40-something woman. Oh and this relationship isn’t any more healthy. None of the characters is particularly appealing, but they do interesting things so I don’t care if I wouldn’t like to hang out with any of them. The novel starts out with Adam’s parents, Sten and Carolee, on vacation in Chile. There they are held up at gunpoint by local thugs. Sten gets one of them in a headlock and ends up killing the guy. It’s an interesting vignette and I thought Sten a great character, but this scene has very little to do with the rest of the novel. To avoid bad publicity and because the guy was a lowlife, Sten is allowed to go back home where his son is rapidly coming unglued. Already schizophrenic and squatting in his dead grandmother’s house on the edge of civilization in an inane attempt to emulate John Colter, Adam gets involved with Sara, a disaffected farrier with deep convictions about how corrupted the government is.That’s one of the big themes of the book - that the government of the US, both Federal and state/local is corrupt. Sara is happy to have water, roads etc, but she won’t pay taxes or register her car. Even the sensibility of wearing a seatbelt eludes her in her adamancy. Maybe Boyle made her funny on purpose or maybe it’s just me. Another big theme is the violation of conservation land in California. That criminals from south of the border are invading, setting up illegal drug plantations and polluting and destroying ecosystems. It’s a very big problem with very few people to fight or even care. I won’t say Sara and Adam deserve each other because they’re too different. Sara is presumptuous and naive. Adam is just plain violent and crazy. The description says that Adam views Sara as his inamorata, but that’s wrong. He’s too disconnected from her. He barely speaks to her when she talks, which is pretty much constantly and he tunes out most of it as unimportant noise. She understands that he’s a dangerous person and will bring her no benefit, but she’s getting laid so she doesn’t care. Her attempts at homey domesticity are really pathetic, not only against the hard stop of his insanity, but her erstwhile rebellious ideas. She does her best to mother/wife Adam, but it’s like trying to influence the tides. He takes what he can get from her and disappears into the woods to tend to his own poppy crop and play at being a mountain man. When his plants are discovered by volunteers for Take Back Our Forests, violence ensues.Sten and Carolee have their run-ins with Adam, too, and by extension, Sara. Aside from the schizophrenia and bizarre wilderness fantasies, there’s the classic “I hate my father because I want to be like him, but can’t” thing going on. Any standing or achievement is automatically ridiculed by the inarticulate and steadfastly insane Adam. He is reasonably entertaining with his hyperbolic pronouncements and John Colter fantasy. I did some checking on the real-life John Colter and his story is all present and accounted for in Adam’s fantasies. He was a bad-ass, but I doubt he was as drunk or stoned as Adam needs to be to get through the day. And in a brilliant flash of irony, Adam sports a Chinese rifle despite his hatred of them as “hostiles”. You can’t expect a happy ending going in and Boyle doesn’t deliver one. The ultimate showdown wasn’t how I thought it would go and overall it was an interesting book with some powerful themes. He doesn’t beat you over the head with them though, something I appreciate about his approach.
    • 4/5
      Carolee and Sten are cruise passengers on an outing from the ship in a bus driven fast and erratically by a local driver. At a much needed rest stop a horrific incident terrifies the bus passengers, and Sten takes charge. His actions have major implications.Sara does not acknowledge authority in any form, neither for herself or her beloved dog, Kutya, considering herself to be a free-born citizen, not to be ordered around by the ‘U.S. Illegitimate Government of America’. She is regularly in trouble with police as a result. By chance Sara meets Sten’s son, Adam, a very mixed up young man, who models himself on John Colter from his history books. Despite the age difference, Adam likes Sara as ‘she was a shit-kicker and so was he’. To some extent they support each other and buy into each other’s warped outlooks on life. Their lives, and the lives of others, are turned upside down.A compelling read, with lots of tension.
    • 3/5
      I like his writing. He often deals with contemporary social issues, and he addresses these topics with well-drawn, complex characters who really grapple with both sides of the issue. In this book, violence was the focus. The two main characters were a dad, age 70, who had served in Vietnam, returned home, and eventually became a high-school principal....and his mentally ill son, age 28, I think, who is extremely disturbed. Honestly, Boyle really knows how to get into the mind of a crazy person. It's a pretty depressing book, really, but it's good. My favorite of all his books, still, is TORTILLA CURTAIN.
    • 5/5
      This was a hard book to get into. The first of the three major characters we are introduced to was not a very pleasant man. Okay, so he's 70 and a Vietnam vet and retired, but he's not a happy man. It's doubtful he ever was happy. At least, he doesn't act like it. Everything is a pain and a bother. The second character is flat out crazy. She follows the "sovereign citizen" movement current in the anti-governmental groups popping up in America. Since that philosophy causes her to put herself outside the rules and expectations of regular citizens, she makes her life harder than it has to be. The third major person e meet is the first character's late in life son and the second character's sometimes lover. He is the most delusion person in the book, and drives most of the action. There are minor characters with their own paranoia fantasies adding to the drama. If this were my little part of America, I think I would move.
    • 3/5
      Story of a young man who is suffering many delusions and thinks of himself as the mountain man, John Colter. His parents, retired Marine and school principal, Stan and Carolee, open the book when they are on a tourist trip to Costa Rica and they are ambushed by thieves and Stan winds up killing the man. Switch back to their home in California and their relationship with Adam, their son, who has caused them many heartaches. Now Adam imagines himself to be this mountain man and finds himself living with Sara, an older woman who is a farrier. Adam eventually kills several people and manages to elude police by hiding in the hills.No one in the story is particularly likeable and at times the plot is not plausible. It does give some insight into the mind of a person who is living under strong delusions such as Adam thinking he is John Colter. Adam is eventually killed by law enforcement and life goes on for Carolee and Stan.
    • 5/5
      In his latest novel, T.C. Boyle explores the disturbing aspects of the American psyche. America was founded on principals of freedom and independence, but this came with rebellion, anger, self-indulgence and even violence. In Boyle’s view, this nature is still alive and well in America and is the source of ideological dogmatism, unhealthy obsession and even frank rage and madness. He adopts a dark and pessimistic tone toward this question, setting the novel in forests and developing characters, who suffer from aspects of this American freedom ethos. He gives us the history of the American frontier characterized by extreme individualism and violence in the myth surrounding mountain man, John Colter; modern drug cowboys who despoil conserved public lands for their own benefit; the far-right sovereign citizen movement that values freedom above community responsibility; and survivalism. This toxic mix has the potential for all kinds of mayhem.None of Boyle’s three narrators are particularly likeable. Adam is a paranoid schizophrenic who is getting no professional help and self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. It is hard to generate much sympathy for his illness because he is so disconnected, selfish and essentially a time bomb that could explode at any moment. He identifies more with John Colter than to his family or to Sara, an older woman, who cares about him. He lives alone in the forest in his deceased grandmother’s house—even walling it off from the environment. He spends his days cultivating a poppy field.Adam’s father, Sten, is a seventy-year-old Marine veteran who, like his son, is prone to violent and impulsive behavior. Boyle establishes this nicely by showing how Sten deals with petty criminals while on vacation with his wife in Central America. Sten has lost patience with his son and demonstrates little love or caring toward him. Sten’s attitude is clearly “my way or the highway” when it comes to Adam. Sara is an extremely eccentric creation. Her libertarian politics are recognizable: she values her freedom but is unwilling to accept any social responsibilities, including paying taxes, registering her car, obeying law enforcement or even wearing seatbelts. Her resistance to any form of government impingement on her freedoms is reminiscent of conservatives who feel that the social contract is null and void, but readily participate in programs like Medicare or Social Security. Sara realizes that Adam is both eccentric and potentially dangerous. Also, she is clear eyed about the one-sided nature of her relationship with Adam but is domestic and nurturing to him, much like she is to her dog and the horses she tends to in her work as a freelance farrier.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a very disturbing book which is based on true events. It deals with mental illness, violence, right wing paranoia, and the results of the 3 mixing together. It takes place in Northern California and being from there I am familiar with the area. The basic story surrounds Sten, a 70 year old retiree, Adam his 25 year old unbalanced son, and Sara a 40 year old right wing no government devotee who gets involved with Adam. The results touch on violence, the government, our response to mental illness and a host of other issues. Boyle is a good writer and this book was a page turner for me. This book will make you think about a lot of things especially with all of the shootings that are occurring. Well worth it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      If there is something that Boyle can do and do well, as evident in the wonderful, and now extremely topical, Tortilla Curtain, it is writing about xenophobia. Read like a spiritual sequel to said novel, the Harder They Come shows Boyle in top form, creating a winding story full of sex, violence, and anxieties against others we see as intruders.

      1 person found this helpful