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"The Tortilla Curtain" is a political novel for an age that has come to distrust not only politicians but political solutions, a modernist muckraking novel by an author who sees the muck not only in class structure and prejudice but in the souls of human beings. Yet where the socially engaged novel once offered critique, Mr. Boyle provides contempt -- even poor Candido, whose plight has been engaging our sympathies throughout this novel, is eventually seen "weaving his way through the scrub, drawn like an insect to the promise of distant lights." Contempt is a dangerous emotion, luring us into believing that we understand more than we do. Contempt causes us to jeer rather than speak, to poke at rather than touch. Despite his celebrated gifts, T. Coraghessan Boyle may be the most contemptuous of our well-known novelists.Read full review
If you want to read a book, that is excellently written, by a quality writer, this is the book for you. If you want to feel the disparity between people of means and those that have nothing, you must read this book. It is human, intelligent, both sides are presented so very well, it is heart wrenching, heart breaking, and at the same time heart warming. For any one that is interested in the life of the Mexican illegal couple and what they have to go through to make a "living," and the absolute hypocrisy of a "liberal" who lives in the hills, and when threatened becomes a great American offender!!! It is a highly recommended book...it is not easy to go through, as it is hard to look at the suffering and the bigotry...but it is a must read for our times!
My husband ordered this book for me for my book club. It was the first book I read in a long time that I felt compelled to discuss with my husband as I was reading it. It is about the disparity between a wealthy white couple in California and a dirt-poor Mexican couple and begins when the 2 men meet by "accident"--the white man runs down the Mexican man with his car and offers him $20 "for his trouble". There are other meetings between the 2 men throughout the book. It is a study in racism from both points of view.
I bought Tortilla Curtain because my book club is reading it. I have read other T. C. Boyle books and liked them. What I remember of his other books is that he is a genius as interspersing human tragedy with absurdity. Tortilla curtain is all the tragedy and none of the absurdity. The book is extremely well written and literate but I can only describe it as painful. It just flows from one tragedy to the next. The connections between the lives of the characters is amazing, but get out a hankie, or the valium if you are reading this one.
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