by T.C. Boyle
This is not a relaxing read. Not a "nice" book. It was a tough read. I had to fight myself to finish it. Very well written. Almost painfully realistic. Except for the pregnant young girl, no heros in sight. Not even good people. Just average awful people. It felt a bit too pessimistic too me...
I’m glad I read John McPhee’s Control of Nature before I read this novel. Part Three of that book, “Los Angeles against the Mountains,” prepared me to understand the environmental and socio-economic setting for this book, a wealthy enclave in the geologically unstable, fire-prone parts of California...
I had a hard time deciding what to rate this, because this is a book with flashes of brilliance and insight which ultimately I don't think works. The book follows two couples that live near each other in the outskirts of Los Angeles: one a rich white tofu-eating liberal American couple, Delaney and ...
Most of the characters, no I think all of them, are sharply drawn caricatures of either hypocritical wealthy redneck pseudo-liberals living in a gated California enclave, or poor hapless powerless victimised illegal Mexicans (how many adjectives can one sentence hold before it explodes?). Toss in s...
A must-read tale of clashing cultures and bigotry. Very funny too!
My first impression of The Tortilla Curtain was that Boyle was simply wallowing in the smug glow of his PC sensibilities- 'You see I UNDERSTAND these minorities and SYMPATHIZE with their plight. And although I'm probably a rich Californian I live in an ungated community so that the Mexican immigra...
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