San Miguel (2012)

A second novel set on the Channel Islands off CA coast.
Quote from Boyle: "derives from my research into the ecology and history of the region for my previous novel, 'When the Killing’s Done'."
I read 'When the Killing's Done' and enjoyed it - would be a recommend. 'San Miquel' isn't quite as compelling a read as the more intense events in first book.
However, it's based on the families who lived on this island in the 1880's and again in the 1930's and was a compelling historical story of the island, the families and their living conditions.
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A good read even for those of us who have spent our lives "shuffling through the card catalogue [and opac], unwrapping a sandwich for lunch at her[our] desk..." ( )

I enjoy most of T.C. Boyle’s books and this was no exception. Taking place on a remote island off the coast of Southern California, spanning the late 1800’s to the advent of WWII, it is the story of three generations of women embarking on new lives. Their stories are of how each strive to survive the isolation, the struggle and the extremes of life as wives and daughters of men who seem to be “loners” but who also depend on their women for companionship and survival. Frightening, maddening and heartbreaking at times, this book has wonderful period detail and characters that will linger in your hearts for a very long time. Read it and enjoy for T.C. Boyle can weave a tale! ( )

In the end I quite liked it. But it did take a while to warm to it — that didn't happen until about a quarter of the way through.
I didn’t really appreciate until much further along that so much of it is based on historical events on the island of San Miguel, one of the Channel Islands across from Santa Barbara in California. Windy, often fogbound, cold, wet and isolated, it was a harsh environment for the sheep ranching family that tried to make a go of it in the late 1800s. They are the subject of the first part of the book.
Marantha Waters was a consumptive who thought she was escaping city air to breathe in the healing fresh Pacific air, so she hopefully accompanied her second husband with their adopted teenage daughter to their new adventure on the island. The book opens with “She was coughing, always coughing, and sometimes she coughed up blood. The blood came in a fine spray, plucked from the fibers of her lungs and pumped full of air as if it were perfume in an atomizer.” They are taking over the sheep ranching duties from another family. There are no other families on the island, only them and some ranch hands, the hired help. Nothing has prepared them for how hard their life will be — the decrepit shack that will be their home, the poor diet rich only in mutton and seafood, the exhausting work required just to eke out a subsistence living. They are not prepared for how destructive the isolation can be. This would be hard enough for a fit person to deal with, but Marantha is in no shape for it with her frequent relapses of TB.

The second part of the book is about another lone family living on the island 40 years later, through the Depression and into the Second World War. The characters are more sharply defined here than those of the first family; this part of the book was a lot more enjoyable and interesting. It is here that I finally figured out that these stories are steeped in fact. The “Swiss Family Lester” was profiled in Life Magazine back in 1940. http://books.google.ca/books?id=xj8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=swi... family lester&source=bl&ots=LlVFuXzURc&sig=dR7XDlz1jFLMfnz3ol8A_ZlTBbk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lfDwT6GHM8e7rQHTmYH-AQ&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=swiss family lester&f=false .
MGM used the island to film the Pitcairn Island scenes of Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935. The original story of this family, [b:The Legendary King of San Miguel] , was written by the wife in 1974, and one of the daughters also wrote a memoir; both were used by Ford as source material.
San Miguel is now a National Park.
This was an ARC from Penguin via Goodreads Giveaway. ( )

T.C. Boyle tells us the story of a family on the San Miguel Island. The desolate island makes for a backdrop for the trials and tribulations of family. Boyle takes us on a vivid join of hard living and stubborn people in a novel of love and hate.

I’ve never actually read a T.C. Boyle novel before but I’ve heard he is a great storyteller, so I was excited to read this novel. This is a book of major family drama, I get the feeling that being stuck on a desolate island off the coast of California isn’t really helping the situation at all. The feeling of isolation is almost like having a cabin fever effect at times and this makes for highly emotional situations.

San Miguel follows the point of views of two different characters, giving us an insight of their inner thoughts and desires. Inspired by historical records, Boyle blends the facts with his own take of the story to bring us a character driven novel of the trials of this family. While at times I found this a highly emotional and somewhat endearing novel, I found myself thinking about novels like Shipping News and remembering just how that was a similar type of novel, only better. It is hard to immerse myself in a novel when I’m too busy comparing it to better novels and I truly think if I was in the right state of mind, this book would have been more enjoyable (perhaps enough to warrant 4 stars).

The characters within this novel are just wonderful; Boyle really knows how to write personalities, desires and inner thoughts, giving them real depth. Marantha and Elizabeth are great protagonists and the isolated location was the perfect backdrop for this story. But I never connected fully with the story, and I think it left too many questions unanswered.

T.C. Boyle is a great storyteller; I will be checking out some more of his work in the future, I’m hoping I can connect with them more than I did with San Miguel. It really didn’t help my enjoyment of this book. So I hope people who decide to give this novel a go, find themselves enjoying the characters and the trials that come there way.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2012/12/18/book-review-san-miguel/ ( )