Terence Tully (Terry), a third-year medical resident in Los Angeles, is
capable and empathetic with patients. In a typical day, Terry must get
through the usual crush, such as transients found down on the pavement;
third-degree burns; a teenage girl who'd been bitten by her boyfriend's
pet fer-de-lance; toddlers poisoned by d-Con; teens crushed in their
cars; drug addicts overdosed on pills; a psychiatric patient whose skin
lesions are exacerbated by the feces he smears on himself; a homeless
woman who's leaking cerebrospinal fluid from her nose; and so on.
Terry
is at the hospital when he learns his mother died suddenly, and he
takes an emergency leave to drive to Boulder City, Nevada, where his
mother lived.
Terry must make decisions about the funeral, and his mother's house, and her dog Daisy, and it's overwhelming.
Needing
a break, Terry goes to a popular nightspot for dinner and happens to
meet a beautiful young woman named Bethany, who works as a receptionist
in a Boulder City hospital.
Bethany
quickly inveigles herself into Terry's bed, and when Terry goes back to
Los Angeles for work, Bethany moves into his mother's house. When Terry
returns to Boulder City, he's shocked to find Bethany there, and most
of him wants her out. Nonetheless, Terry is mesmerized by Bethany's
sensuality and sexuality, and he accepts her excuse: Just before she met
Terry, Bethany broke up with her boyfriend Jesse - who stole her savings
and paycheck - and she's currently homeless and penniless. 
Unfortunately,
Bethany's former boyfriend Jesse still considers Bethany his property, and he's not about to let it go. Jesse is something of a dichotomy: he
teaches English Language Arts to eighth-graders; he minored in creative
writing; and he plans to write a novel.
Jesse also rides a Honda 450RL motorcycle, and revels in the tough guy image.
After
Terry and Bethany accidentally encounter Jesse in a restaurant, Jesse
tells Terry, "You want some advice? She's poison. You don't know that
yet, but you're going to find out soon enough." Jesse still wants
Bethany though, and he starts a war against Terry by flattening all four
tires on Terry's car in the middle of the night.
Nevertheless, Terry's observation about Bethany's
'toxicity' seems prognostic. When Terry drives from Los Angeles to
Boulder City for a surprise visit, his mother's house is a mess. There
are smeared dishes on the coffee table, pizza crusts, the remains of a
salad, beer cans, a diminished fifth of Jack Daniels, a cluster of used
glasses...and a strange girl on the couch wearing a T-shirt and pajama
bottoms. It turns out Bethany invited her friend Lutie to stay in the
house. 
Moreover, it's Lutie's birthday, and Jesse and his best friend Thomas show up for the festivities.
Terry
thinks he's been made a fool of, Bethany is a liar, yada yada yada, and
he insists Bethany get out of his mother's house. Soon enough, though,
Bethany has talked and seduced her way back into the domicile, part of
her argument being that she's taking care of the dog Daisy (who's been
evicted from Terry's Los Angeles apartment). 
It's
hard to know if Bethany is deliberately using Terry, or if she's just a
free spirit who doesn't understand boundaries. With Bethany giving
mixed signals, the antagonism between Jesse and Terry escalates, partly
by happenstance, and partly on purpose.
To say any more would be a spoiler.
The
story maintained my attention, but it's not among my favorite books by
T.C. Boyle. A toxic love triangle is less interesting to me than themes
like climate change and mental illness that the author addresses in
other books.
Still, this is a page-turner that many readers would enjoy.
Thanks to Netgalley, T.C. Boyle, and Liveright for an ARC of the book.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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