T.C. Boyle is the author of over a hundred short stories and twelve novels, known for his biting satire and unpredictable humor. His novel World’s End won the 1988 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
 

"One of my aides — Colin or Carter or Rutherford, I couldn’t keep their names straight — was telling a joke in dialect about three Mexican gardeners and an outhouse, another was spouting demographic theory, and the stewardess swished by with a smell of perfume that hit me like a twenty-one gun salute. It was then — out of a whirl of thoughts and impressions like cream whipped in a blender — that I had my moment of grace, of inspiration, the moment that moves mountains, solves for x, and makes a musical monument of the ‘Hymn to Joy,’ the moment the mass of humankind lives an entire lifetime for and never experiences. ‘Of course’, I blurted, upending the salad I my excitement, ‘yes,’ and I saw all the campaign trails of all the dreary, pavement-pounding, glad-handing years fall away beneath me like streamers from heaven, like tickertape, as I turned to kiss Lorna as if I were standing before the cheering hordes on Inauguration Day.” 

— T.C. Boyle, "The New Moon Party"