Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T. C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, his sixth collection of stories, Boyle exhibits his maturing themes, speaking to contemporary social issues in a range of emotional keys. The sixteen stories gathered here, nine of which have appeared in The New Yorker and three in The O'Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories volumes, display Boyle's astonishing range as he rings his changes on everything from air rage ("Friendly Skies") to abortion doctors ("Killing Babies"). There are also stories of quiet passion here, such as "The Love of My Life," which deals with first love and its consequences, and "My Widow," a touching portrait of the writer's own possible future. The collection ends with the brilliant title story, a whimsical and imaginative vision of a disease-ravaged Earth and the few inheritors of a new Eden. Presented with characteristic wit and intelligence, these stories will delight readers in search of the latest news of the chaotic, disturbing, and achingly beautiful world in which we live.

"While there's not much new ground broken here, Boyle more than makes up for the relative lack of innovation by delivering his trademark dazzler endings....Boyle has matured since 1995's Without a Hero: here he relies more on language than farce or shock value, describing the relationship between two lovers who 'wore each other like a pair of socks,' or, conversely, a college boy who enters a girl's room and feels 'like some weird growth sprung up on the unsuspecting flank of her personal space.' Boyle's imagination and zeal for storytelling are in top form here, making this collection a smash." Publishers Weekly

"Boyle is not only a master literary craftsman but also profoundly attuned to the here and now, writing with sharp wit, supple imagination, and acute emotional sensitivity about the peculiarities of our densely populated, technology addled, and precarious world....Observant, empathic, and fresh, Boyle's stories affirm literature's vital and abiding role in our culture as the lights flicker on and off and dot-coms fizzle and die." Booklist (starred review)

"In his sixth collection of short stories, Boyle presents a series of wickedly ironic, sometimes poignant, sometimes darkly humorous tales that speak directly to the human condition and to a variety of contemporary social issues — from abortion to Internet voyeur cams, from railway killers to air rage....All in all this is classic Boyle, a work to be embraced by his enthusiasts and one that belongs in most collections of serious fiction." Library Journal

T. Coraghessan Boyle is the author of five short story collections including his collected stories, T. C. Boyle Stories, and eight novels, most recently A Friend of the Earth. His 1987 novel, World's End, was the recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award, and The Tortilla Curtain won the Prix Médici Étranger in 1997 for best novel published in France by a foreign writer. In 1999, he received the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction. His fiction appears regularly in magazines such as The New Yorker, Esquire, Granta, GQ, The Paris Review, and Playboy.