[1][2] In Understanding T. C. Boyle, Paul William Gleason writes, "Boyle's stories and novels take the best elements of Carver's minimalism, Barth's postmodern extravaganzas, García Márquez's magical realism, O'Connor's dark comedy and moral seriousness, and Dickens' entertaining and strange plots and brings them to bear on American life in an accessible, subversive, and inventive way.

His themes, such as the often-misguided efforts of the male hero and the slick appeal of the anti-hero, appear alongside brutal satire, humor, and magical realism.

[8] Boyle has published eleven collections of short stories, including Descent of Man (1979), Greasy Lake (1985), If the River Was Whiskey (1989), and Without a Hero (1994).

[2] Their home was imperiled in the 2017 Thomas Fire which consumed 440 square miles and over 1,000 structures in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, killing a firefighter in the latter.

The fires denuded drought-stricken hillsides of vegetation and torrential rains in January 2018 subsequently dislodged immense boulders and precipitated mudslides which destroyed over one hundred homes and killed almost two dozen of his neighbors.