The Tortilla Curtain

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Book Overview

T.C. Boyle's "irresistible" (Entertainment Weekly) classic bestseller, a tragicomic novel about assimilation, immigration, and the price of the American dream

"A masterpiece of contemporary social satire." --The Wall Street Journal

WINNER OF THE PRIX M DICIS TRANGER

Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014023828X
• ISBN13: 9780140238280
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Rename it A Series of Unfortunate Events

I get what the author was trying to do, but the whole story seems ridiculous to me. Like everything goes wrong. I felt like I was going in circles reading this. There are characters the author focuses events around, but they add nothing to the story whatsoever. The writing style itself I liked, but this books flow was odd. It's a hard read and I will probably end up giving this book away.

Poor writing, poor character development, poor structure

This book had a lot of potential. Good idea for a story, but they writing was pretty cringy. I read the whole book because I have a thing about finishing books I start but by the end I really just wanted it to be over. I had high hopes and was very disappointed.

Chilling, depressing, excellent

I grew up 20 minutes from the Mexican border. I knew people like Candido and America, good, honest, hard-working folks who only wanted a chance to live and prosper, who spent each waking moment dreading the appearance of La Migra. TC Boyle has characterized these people beautifully. They're not angels, and he nailed the bad elements, the punks and chucos, just as thoroughly as he brought his protagonists to life on the page. If people think this book DOESN'T deal with the reality of life in Southern California...and Northern California, and Arizona, and Texas, and New Mexico, and YES, Eastern Washington, anywhere where the "haves" need the services and cheap back-breaking labor of the "have-nots"...then you need to get out more and leave the blinders at home! TC sets the action early and he is relentless. The Rashoman-style serves him well, although he was brutal in his descriptions of Delaney and Kyra and their neighbors...the quintessential liberal do-gooders in their SUV's and mammoth gated communities eating up the very "wildness" they glorify while sipping Chardonnay and munching smoked sturgeon. People who think if they belong to Sierra Club and drop a few coins in the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas, they've done their part. This book does an excellent job of throwing a spotlight on the racial discord, which unfortunately grows by leaps and bounds daily, particularly in our post-911 hysteria. What was true in 1995 has only intensified in 2004, growing to include irrational fear towards anyone "different" from the Euro-descended, workaholic, Christian villagers. Listen to the community fathers and mothers fret about homeless tent cities being moved to their 'hoods. It's a wonder we don't have torches descending on the churchyards harboring these supposed "sex perverts" and "thieves"...guilty by way of bad luck. Read this book. Get a look at the other side of your office cleaning lady's life, the reality of that small dark man with the leaf blower or stacking the shelves in your local Wal-Mart. You owe to yourself.

A Quick Quiz

Assuming you haven't read this book and are actually scanning the reviews to figure out whether you should, I've devised a brief set of questions which may help. 1.) Have you ever traveled on your own in a Third World country? 2.) Did you enjoy the film "El Norte?" 3.) Do vast disparities between wealth and poverty disturb you? 4.) Are you politically left-leaning? 5.) Is social commentary in the form of an outrageous tragicomedy something that would interest you? Each "yes" answer is worth one star. 3 stars = worth a try 4 stars = a strong buy 5 stars = what, are you high? It's five stars! As for some of the negative reviews I've read in these pages, I must strongly disagree with certain statements. For instance, one reviewer says the characters are "stereotypes." Hardly. I've spent most of my life in So Cal. In twenty minutes I could take you on a tour that would show you nearly everything that appears in "Tortilla Curtain," from the guys hanging around in front of the mega-hardware store, desperately hoping for some day work, to the obnoxious mini-mansions sprouting in the hills, to the plywood shanties where migrants live without running water or electricity, to the cell-phone wielding suburbanites tailgating each other down the freeway at 80 M.P.H. Everything else, you can read in the newspaper several times a week. It's all real, folks.

California Dreaming

Q: So what is this book about?A: Hmm, that's a pretty good question. There are issues of race involved, and racism, but you probably guessed that from the title. Honesty and values are questioned and examined. And national pride is also a going issue. And comparative wealth. But these aren't really what the book is about. It's more about... well, you'll just have to read it.Q: That sounds like a cop-out. Didn't you read the book yourself?A: Of course I did. I just finished reading it last night, around suppertime.Q: Then why can't you give me a rundown of what the book's about?A: Because it's a complex and sophisticated book. Author T. Coraghessan Boyle creates characters who represent both literal and supra-literal themes, contrasting the extremes of the economic spectrum in Southern California. His use of symbolic language and imagery is on a par with Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. He consciously makes us think of modern issues in terms that were defined in other eras by writers like Voltaire, Aristotle, Keats, Jefferson, and Rousseau. This is an important and meaningful work. You really ought to read it.Q: Sounds like the boring "literature" I had to read in high school that didn't even pretend to communicate with me. Is this going to be as dull as those books were?A: Not hardly. I found it gripping reading. I put off preparing dinner to have time to read this book. I was late to class behind the time I spent reading this book. I missed my bedtime because I didn't want to stop reading this book. There are a lot of painfully dull books out there that we read because we're told we ought to, but not this one. You'll want to spend time reading this book, even as it challenges your assumptions.Q: But that's not what this book is really about. Can you give me a thumbnail plot summary?A: Sure. Delaney Mossbacher is a red-haired writer in his forties with liberal leanings and a tendency to become passionate about issues, living in California, though born on the East Coast-notably, this is a description that also applies to Boyle. Cándido Rincón is an illegal immigrant from Mexico, camped with his wife in a grassy creek valley in the middle of L.A.Each is afflicted with his own worries, and each invests the same weight in his respective worries, though their respective circumstances mean they have very different worries. Delaney frets about the environment, racial parity, crime, and making payments on his house and car. Cándido worries about getting work to buy food, and whether his wife will be able to give birth in a hospital. Both are afflicted by a common seeming curse: everything either one tries to accomplish ultimately fails.One day Delaney accidentally hits Cándido on the road, leaving the poor immigrant wounded and unable to find work. If Cándido goes to a hospital, the INS will deport him, so he accepts $20 from Delaney and slinks off to heal. All this happens right on page one and the next few pages-Boyle isn't interested in wasting

Deserves 6 stars!

While reading House of Sand and Fog earlier this year, I was reminded of another book to read called The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle. Friends of mine who live in Southern California had recommended this book to me for sometime and shortly after I finished the Dubus book, I picked up Tortilla Curtain. Now that I've read both of these books I can't stop thinking about both of them, their stories, the characters or unbeliveable outcomes. And if I were to give House of Sand and Fog a 5 star rating, I would surely give 6 stars to The Tortilla Curtain.Tortilla Curtain is the phrase used to describe the thin borders between Mexico and the United States which immigrants cross over in their attempt to live better lives. In this "blow you away novel," TC Boyle offers his readers a plot and characters who are not only involved in the world of illegal aliens but whose lives will never be the same. And for many of us it is as if this novel's premise was lifted off the pages of our daily newspapers and one for which there is no easy solution.Candido along with his wife America are illegal aliens living in the canyons and brush areas of Southern California. When the book opens Candido is hit by a car driven by Delaney a writer for an environmental magazine. Although Candido hurries away from the scene for for fear of being caught and questioned his injuries prevent him from working for the next few days. In eloquent words, the author then describes how America seeks work and is both verbally and physically abused which causes Candido great regrets about crossing the border and bringing America to the US.At the same time nearby in a prosperous planned community, Delaney lives with his wife Kyra, a real estate broker, and her son. The residents of this community are hounded by intruding coyotes in their backyards as well as suspected illegal aliens who rob their homes. Plans are underway to erect a large fence which should keep out all intruders except that Delaney voices his concerns about the fence wondering if the residents aren't locking themselves into their fancy homes. But as the novel continues the people of this community only become more and more incensed and Delaney's words fall on deaf ears Soon enough, though, and after a series of events, Delaney, begins to feel differently about the fence. Even when he knows the truth, he finally becomes out of control concerning any and all who cross the borders illegally. And then one day Candido and Delaney finally meet up again, in what has to be one of the most gripping and stunning conclusions of any book.We read this book through chapters told in the alternating voices of Candido and Delaney until their two voices are ultimately linked together as one struggles against his better judgement and the other struggles to maintain his dignity.This is a powerful and masterful book which describes lives spiraling out of control and should have every reader asking themselves what they would do when faced w

The Shallowness of the American Dream

It is rare, these days, to come across a rational discourse on the perils of the modern American white male. Most books on the subject tend to travel along the lines of 'reclaiming your identity', or 'actualization'. This leads to the unhappy result: The Promise Keepers movement (shudder).This sort of discourse overlooks the fairly obvious; life ain't what it used to be. The world as it now exists is complex, demanding, and illogical. The American male is often left bewildered and impotent by the lack of power he posesses. This can result in scapegoating, racism, and any other number of social ills that the mind is capable of. T. Coraghessen Boyle's wonderful novel THE TORTILLA CURTAIN captures this helplessness perfectly.Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher are liberal humanists living an idyllic life in Los Angeles. Kyra sells homes, while Delaney authors a column for an enviromental magazine. (Incidentally, Delaney's column is a brilliant conceit: A well-fed and pampered white male rhapsodizes about 'sleeping under the stars'. Its mix of down-home homilies and ridiculous views of nature echoes the terrific but sometimes preachy nature of THE UTNE READER, an alternative viewpoints magazine. It's a great magazine, but its articles have a tendency to lean towards the dangerously nostalgic.) Everything seems perfect, until Delaney runs over an illegal Mexican immigrant named Candido. This proves to be a defining moment in both of their lives, and Boyle does a terrific job at intertwining their resulting stories; Delaney finds himself increasingly unable to exist within his world, while Candido struggles to provide himself and his young wife with the life that is promised under the heading, 'The American Dream'.Boyle captures perfectly the inane lifestyle that most white Americans desperately crave; a life with all the trimmings, seemingly simple and in tune with nature, yet completely at the mercy of nature's forces. Boyle leads Delaney and Kyra down this path with a slow, steady hand, as they find their supposedly heart-felt liberalism whittled away by petty annoyances, leading to a startling burst of racism towards illegal immigrants, the all-purpose scapegoats.Boyle's point is well-taken. The veneer of civility people purport to live under is thin indeed. His contrast of this world with the stark desperation that Candido lives with every day is brilliant. It may be an oft-used theory that those with everything are never satisfied, but Boyle manages to makes it fresh. As Delaney steadily falls apart, and Candido glimpses hope time and time again, Boyle unearths the true face of America: A greedy, self-absprbed child who wants everything, and becomes violent when someone else wants the same things.The insulated nature of the American culture has always been an easy target, for good reason. But Boyle refuses to make his novel an exercise in parody. Boyle sympathizes, but refuses to compromise. THE TORTILLA CURTAIN is that rarest of