The Tortilla Curtain (Penguin Books with Reading Guides)

This book was thoroughly enjoyable and really made me think. There were many levels on the same theme: “invading.” It was very interesting to me that the upper class white Americans in this book wanted to live in this unforgiving dry and even hostile land. However they were able to transform it by their wealth to a place that was livable. They were the initial invaders of this land.Then there were animals that Delaney reported on in his column, many of whom were invaders themselves scrabbling to find a foothold in a land divided up into subsections and housing tracks. They hunted the indigenous animals of the area and also the pets of these upper class folks, which were just more food to the coyotes.Then there were the undocumented Mexicans hiding in the canyons, trying to make a living and managing to just survive. My heart truly did go out to Candido and America as they struggled to survive, lived in a camp, and took the absolute worst jobs possible just to eat. The fact that they really wanted to work and to have a real life not being oppressed in either Mexico or America, made me really want to pull for them.This truly is a great book for a book club or a social studies course. It addressed as many issues that will always be current. We all need to think about how we treat each other and this planet. Regardless of where we are from we all want to survive and have a good life. We want to all have our space, unmolested, and our things. We want our boundaries, our walls and fences, to keep ourselves safe and our things safe. I think this is a natural desire, however we have to remember that this world will always encroach to some degree and we need to react peacefully not confrontationally.There are some bad eggs In this book, both white and Mexican (and animals too) And some of the events within the story have made me wonder how would I react if this was happening in my own neighborhood. I would hope I would not react in as discriminatory a way as Delaney and the other Arroyo Blanco residents.I also found it very interesting that towards the end of the story more plans were being considered by Kyra for more invasions! Life just goes on and not much really changes.All in all a great read!

Tortilla Curtain has the archetypal power of a Greek tragedy as it tracks the live of Delaney Mossbacker, a man trying to be good and true to nature and his liberal values while living in a subdivision perched on the dry, unpredictable hills around Los Angeles where no houses should probably be. His wife Kyra, a realtor dreams of living in mansions. Delaney is a stay-at-home dad, a naturalist who writes a nature column in the local paper, and drives and Acura. It is the best of all possible worlds until one day Delaney hits Candido with that Acura. Candido, a struggling Mexican immigrant coming home from a failed attempt to find work at the parking lot where local contractors seek laborers, it battered by the collision, but living, and being afraid and illegal, can only accept Delaney's offer of a 20 dollar bill for his suffering and injuries.Luck does not run either man's way. Delaney's pedigreed dogs, are snatched in separate incidents by coyotes scaling increasingly more solid (and higher) walls, his replacement Acura is stolen while he is on a nature walk. Another Mexican menaces his wife...little by little Delaney becomes more angry, blameful and reactionary. He joins conservative neighbor in their association to build higher wall, chase the immigrants way, and yes, owning a pistol. Increasing in Delaney's mind, "Mexicans" become the cause of all Delaney's problem.Candido's luck on the other hand is Jobean in nature. He is stove up for weeks after the accident unable to work. When he can again go for work his newly pregnant wife is raped by two other immigrants as she returns to their hovel in a canyon nearby Delaney's subdivision, they make some money and go into the city where Candido is tricked, beaten, and robbed of their savings, they return to their shack in the canyon, Candido has luck and begins to save enough money that they might be able to share an apartment to lives and start a real life, but then trying to cook a frozen turkey that he was given during a period of the Santa Ana winds, he inadvertently starts a forest fire which destroys, their camp and all their savings while the fire threatens Delaney's estate.The two men's fates are separate, yet fatefully intertwined until the novel's end. Both men want to do well, want to succeed, and want no trouble from anyone but their hopes are perpetually thwarted. Both men are "trying to make a good life for themselves and their families" but just when things seem to be looking up, fate intervenes. One (initially at least) sympathizes with Delaney and can empathize with he participation in increasing efforts to wall his life off from the rest of the world. One understand (if one is honest with oneself) how the impact of uncontrolled immigration can frustrates those who are established.But when Delaney's frustrations are matched against Candido's, our sympathies for Delaney lessen. Candido and America have nothing, again and again they have to return to the canyon floor to leave in a lean-to and drink creek water. Again and a again their limited belongings are reduced even more. Each time they begin to have a little luck and save a little money, fate intervenes to snatch it away--there life is a life with no recourse and no support. We see the lives of enconomic immigrants in new ways.Boyle's decision to see the pressures of illegal immigration in ecological terms (two groups contesting the same ecological niche) along with the echoes of Candide's exploration of this, "the best of all possible world make this a book well worth reading and discussing with others.

This was my first excursion into the writing of TC Boyle and there was certainly enough in this 1995 novel for it to not be my last. Pitching the 'haves’ of well-off, sometimes 'gated’, middle-class LA communities against the influx of disadvantaged Mexican immigrants would seem to be an idea that captures the current (2020s) political zeitgeist – both in the US and elsewhere – equally as much as that of nearly three decades ago and Boyle skilfully portrays this 'conflict’ very personally from each side. Both the Mossbachers – with husband, Delaney, somewhat conflicted by his more liberal environmentalist views, whilst wife and real estate agent, Kyra, obsesses over the next multi-million dollar house sale – and struggling illegal immigrants Cándido and his 17-year old pregnant wife, (the no doubt ironically named) América – looking to live their view of ‘the American Dream’ even if only by securing a regular, menial, paying job – are portrayed in vivid detail and Boyle puts us, convincingly, in each’s shoes, allowing us to ponder the issue from both sides, thereby making his tale all the more intriguing. I found the book to be quite hard-hitting and didn’t detect much of Boyle’s mooted satire (outside of Delaney’s own conflicted inner self), but it was none the worse for that. One of my only reservations with the novel was its conclusion which, whether it was intended to be read literally as ‘drama’ or instead as a hint at ‘magic realism’, it didn’t quite work for me – which was something of a shame as the book’s denouement was otherwise very gripping.

I read this for a book club and it provoked quite a lot of discussion. It was an easy read - though non-Spanish speakers may need to look up the odd word here and there. You live the experiences of the Mexican couple, seeing America through their eyes - and boy, do you feel terribly sorry for them and angry at the rich Americans for being so intolerant. Some of the Mexicans are shown in a very poor light, so the story isn't one-sided. At the same time, you're taken through the thought processes of a 'liberal' American, at least he thinks that he is, although how anyone can run over someone, toss them a few dollars and leave them obviously dazed and injured, then start to think that they deliberately got themselves knocked down to guilt-trip the driver into giving them money is beyond me! His antagonism to the Mexicans grows as the story continues until you feel that nothing short of murder would satisfy him. The prejudices of the house owners of upmarket real estate aren't new to anyone who's heard people moaning about nearby social housing or travellers ruining their property prices and thieving, but when contrasted with the lives of the Mexicans, it brings that contrast between the haves and have-nots into sharp focus. All this is particularly relevant in the light of growing white supremacy in Trump's USA and the rise of nationalism and the far-right across Europe following the mass migration of people fleeing from warfare and the effects of global warming in poorer and less developed countries. It's the kind of book I think people should read to hopefully make them think twice about their attitudes.

Now, hold on! I didn’t say it wasn’t a great read, just not quite a great novel and if you stick with me for a moment or two, I’ll explain what I mean.It’s a great opening chapter – couldn’t be greater. Slap bang into the inciting incident as the hapless DELANEY MOSSBACHER whilst driving to his home (in the fictitious Arroyo Blanco estates, supposedly located near Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles County) hits a man who inexplicably steps out in front of him. ‘Who was he, where did he go, was he all right?’ The incident couldn’t set the scene better, and more importantly it introduces two of the four main characters – not just to the reader, but to one another.But these aren’t just four main characters. Delaney and KYRA, and CANDIDO and the ironically named AMERICA are two distinct sets of characters in two different types of art form. THE TORTILLA CURTAIN by TC BOYLE is two different systems of writing levered into one book. One is satirical novel (Delaney & Kyra), the other (Candido & America) is incontrovertibly social-realist docudrama very much after the style of Upton Sinclair. Candido and America never emerge as anything more than stereotypes inhabiting the tragic world of the migrant worker (Boyle’s epigraph is Steinbeck, but I couldn’t help thinking of the struggling Jurgis and his pregnant wife in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle). The reader’s heart is perpetually in their mouth. Rough-sleeping next highway and canyon, you know they’re going to get robbed, encounter violence. They’re doomed never to prosper – even to survive. In affluent contrast living in their orange-tiled, Navajo white rendered – and soon to be gated - ranch-style bungalow, Delaney and Kyra are thoroughly original characters. Kyra is a workaholic realtor with fantasies of living in one of her more eccentric listings. Delaney is nerdy, writes a nature column for the local newspaper, likes to hike off road. But Delaney’s nerdiness hides an inner conflict, that is between his perception of the natural world, his feelings for humanity, and how not only people like him are ruining it with their Japanese waxed automobiles, supermarkets, plastic packaging, and the impetigo of gated communities in the Hollywood Hills, but so is the flood of migrant workers from Mexico coming through the ‘tortilla curtain.’ In one way, TC Boyle has been incredibly clever, using the symbol of a curtain, a barrier, a wall even. The book itself is a wall, a divide, with totally different methods of presenting writing. Docudrama meets satirical narrative. It’s an inventive approach, but to my mind there’s a huge flaw.Boyle has given the two parts of the book – more or less – equal status. Same number of words and chapters for Candido and America, and same for Delaney and Kyra. One duo are stereotypes in a social realist setting; Candido; proud, hot-headed, selfish, macho but naïve. America; plucky but basically subservient to Candido. The other duo expressive liberated originals; they’ve even named their pets after the English literary family the Sitwells!This strategy actually confuses the reader. They don’t know who to ‘invest’ in. Who is the hero? Who is the villain? Why does there appear to be no main dramatic question? I emphasize that this is no more than my personal view –others younger and wiser than me may take a different view – but I think the book would have been more homogeneous by undertaking to explore deeper into the Delaney/Kyra relationship and have Candido/America appear in glimpses as part of a social backdrop. You get the feeling that because Boyle has wanted to give the two duos ‘even stevens’ that he’s giving a lot of backstory on both Candido and America that the reader doesn’t need. I don’t believe that I’d feel any less concerned for the plight of Candido and America if they were given less story time, but it would make for a great novel if we could delve further into Delaney and Kyra’s psyches, more on their six-year-old son Jordan, a little more on the relationship with Kyra’s mum, and definitely more on their sinister house-arrested and ankle security bracelet-wearing neighbour Dominic Flood. The ‘glimpses’ I just mention could become longer and more focussed as the narrative develops – maybe mixed with news flashes (Boyle does this once to excellent effect at the denouement of the bush fire) – until it all comes together in the dramatic conclusion of the elements; earth, air, fire and water. But that’s just my view.Boyle can be very funny. Some of his satirical references made me laugh. And he’s got a terrific ability to force link images in the reader’s mind; the man with the stained dentures and panel hat worn backwards, the rusted automobile, the stolen automobile, the white rendered wall, the reoccurring graffiti, the Thanksgiving turkey – great linkages, and a great read all round.

This book reminded me of Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' with its harrowing accounts of what if feels like to be down on your luck and destitute. The story is set in California, amid the racial prejudice held against the influx of Mexican illegal immigrants flooding into the area looking for work. The story centres around Delaney, who has a traffic accident and Candido, who is the Mexican he hits at the start of the story. The dual perspective swings back and forth between their opposing worlds - Delaney's world of plenty and Candido' destitute life where he lives on his wits to try to provide for his young wife and keep them from starvation. A roller coaster chain of events lead these two characters to cross paths, changing their destinies forever. A compelling read!

Despite a small amount of predictable and at times unplausible events, this novel does make for a good fun and gripping read. The sliding door effect is well developped, and the contrast between the excesses and discrimination of el Norte and the hopelessness and homelessness of the American dreamers is told through a series of interesting,realistic characters and events. Overall, I would say this was well researched and written and definitely worth a read :)