Talk, Talk
A Novel by T. C. Boyle
Wild Child
A Novella transmitted through T. C. Boyle by
Dana Halter, the
heroine of “Talk, Talk”
(Blogger Note: This review was previously published in The LAMLight, the physician newsletter of
Wild Child has subsequently been published as part of a short story collection.)
If the caption above intrigues you,
well it should. If you have never read
anything by T. C. Boyle, then you have truly missed unique reading experiences. This author has been called “America’s most
imaginative contemporary novelist” by “Newsweek” magazine and “one of the most
inventive and verbally exuberant writers of his generation” by “The New York
Times.” In my opinion these accolades
underestimate the importance of Mr. Boyle.
He has written wildly entertaining historical fiction based on
exceptionally eccentric characters such as Alfred Kinsey (The Inner Circle), C. W. Post and and Will Kellogg (The Road to Wellville) and Stanley
McCormick, schizophrenic heir of the farm machinery fortune (Riven Rock). He has written science fiction (Friend of the Earth) and stinging
stories exposing current social dilemmas such as illegal immigration (The Tortilla Curtain). In Talk,
Talk, Mr. Boyle examines the modern phenomenon of identity theft.
The skeleton plot of Talk, Talk is superficially
mundane. A young California school teacher named Dana Halter is
stopped for a minor traffic violation and is immediately arrested for several
outstanding warrants from adjacent states.
She is caught in a Kafka-esque bureaucracy and spends a weekend in
jail. When it is finally determined that
Dana is a victim of identity theft and not the perpetrator of these many
misdeeds, she and her boyfriend Bridger Martin, a graphic artist working for a
Hollywood special effects company set off on a cross country chase to confront
the thief and set the record straight.
What make this story so thoroughly
unique and intriguing are the characters.
Dana Halter is completely deaf, a result of meningitis in early
childhood. Her speech is difficult to
interpret, often causing strangers to surmise that she is mentally
deficient. She stubbornly refused to
consider cochlear implants, preferring to develop her communication skills with
other methods. Her ability to lip-read
and sign deteriorates when she is stressed and agitated, which she becomes more
of as the story progresses. Bridger
truly loves Dana for who she is, but as their search becomes more frenzied and
Dana vents her frustrations on Bridger, their relationship suffers. William “Peck” Wilson is the identity thief who lives the
high life using stolen credit and shell game purchasing techniques. He fluidly changes his identity depending on
the circumstance. His live in girl
friend Natalia is a former mail order bride from Eastern Europe who moves in
with Peck (who she knows as “Dana”) and thoroughly enjoys the American
consumerism-crazed lifestyle. Their
relationship deteriorates also as Natalia becomes very concerned over just who
her boyfriend really is. She fears truthful
confrontation because she does not want to jeopardize her way of life. How people (couples especially) communicate
and fail to communicate in this modern world becomes a main theme. Dana and Bridger have problems because of
Dana’s deafness. Peck and Natalia mis-communicate
because of Peck’s dishonesty and Natalia’s misunderstanding of idioms and
expressions. The other issue which comes
full circle in this story is: What is identity in today’s world? In Bridger’s world he can change the identity
of a character in a movie with the click of a mouse, substituting an actor’s
face for a stunt double’s and even putting a human face on a futuristic monster
or super hero. Dana can be jailed and
have her entire life altered because someone has nefariously used her
identity. Peck can shed the life of a
violent lower class criminal and drive the latest Mercedes coupe, live in an
opulent ocean side condo and dine at the finest Los Angeles restaurants by doing a morning’s
research in the public library and using readily available data to assume
fraudulent identities.
This brings us to Wild
Child. Dana teaches high school
English in a school for hearing impaired children. She is also an aspiring novelist and
throughout Talk, Talk works on this
novella. It is published in the Spring, 2006
issue of “McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.” This publication is the brainchild of author
Dave Eggers and is bizarre and innovative in its own right. The Spring issue arrived at my home in a
cigar box crammed with extraneous documents such as a 1890s legal services ad,
a 1950 air raid defense brochure from the Civil Defense Administration and a
2002 Department of Defense memo authored by Donald Rumsfeld. The main character in Wild Child is a 12 year old who was abandoned in the wilds of
post-Revolution France and left for dead.
He managed to survive and is eventually recaptured by well-meaning
peasants. Attempts are made to
“civilize” the wild child and to teach him how to communicate with his fellow
humans. A young scientist makes the
education of Victor (as he becomes known) his primary endeavor. He devotes all of his energies to instructing
Victor how to recognize shapes and then letters. He tries to instruct Victor how to form
sounds and how the sounds represent objects.
These lessons take years to reach even rudimentary success. The frustrations of the teacher and the pupil
are documented throughout this poignant story.
Wild Child is a fascinating
story in its own right. Read in light of
the themes elaborated in Talk, Talk
makes it even more intriguing.
Understanding that T. C. Boyle has written this from the frustrating
perspective of a deaf-mute character of his own creation is fantastic. Each story succeeds independently, but each
also enhances the understanding of the other.
These are the works of true genius.
