The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
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Book Reviews of The Tortilla Curtain
Book Review: Weirdest book I've ever read
Summary: 2 Stars
The best thing that I can say about this book is that it is well-written. However, that's about its only asset. I was 90 pages into it before it became interesting and stopped being deathly boring. I can honestly say that I have no idea what this book is about. According to the cover, it is supposedly about the American dream, a catch-all term that has very little to do with the book. In reality, I found the book to be too long, drawn out and pointless.
It is mostly the story of two couples and of illegal immigration in America. One couple, Delaney and Kyra, live in a fairly new subdivision on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, California. Delaney is an okay guy who means well. At first I didn't like Kyra, who seems to be a very selfish person. It seems that she only married Delaney for a live-in housekeeper and babysitter. With her hectic, self-imposed work schedule, I found myself wondering how they had ever had any time for courting. She has a son, Jordan, whose father is never mentioned. However, she seldom sees him or does anything with him. That's why she married Delaney, I guess. He is a gourmet cook, takes care of her child and her pets, cleans the house, etc. I started liking Kyra when she confronted the negligent owner of a dog left in a vehicle.
The second couple, Candido and America are from Mexico and came to California illegally. At first, I was in Candido's corner. He is a hard-working man who, at first, seemed to mean well. America is the baby sister of his first wife. She is only 17 and Candido is likely around 20 years older than her. Candido and America live in a canyon while getting odd jobs and saving for an apartment.
I stopped liking Candido's character when he refused to get help for his laboring wife. His excuse was that he was afraid of being arrested. In the unlikely event that anyone thought that he started the wild fire simply because he was asking for help for his wife, they'd likely temporarily overlook it while they got her to a hospital. Rather than getting an ambulance for her, he has her give birth in someone's dirty tool shed! And, instead of getting help for her as soon as the baby was born, he builds a lean-to and has her hike up a hill to it soon after giving birth. Then, the really bad part, was when he starting trapping and eating domestic cats! He had plenty of vegetables that he'd raided from a garden. Meat was unnecessary. I'd turn into a vegetarian before I'd eat someone's pet! His first victim was Dame Edith, Kyra's siamese cat, who was the only individual to give America any comfort while she was in labor and giving birth. How anyone could betray the trust of any animal is unbelievable.
I didn't blame America for coming to hate her husband. By the end, I despised him myself. He refused to get her help, refused to get help for the baby even though she was clearly in need of it. Because he said (to himself) that he would never allow her to leave him to go back home like she wanted, I was almost hoping he'd drown in the flood. Unfortunately, the writer had the baby die instead.
The ending was okay, but by that time the reader has so much invested in the book that it leaves a person wondering what happened next.
I work at a sheriff's office with federal jail contracts. So, I know something of how ICE (formerly INS) works. I don't understand why America didn't turn herself into them while she was in the city and wanted to go home. She'd have had regular meals, an air-conditioned cell, medical care and a mattress to sleep on until her hearing, which was much more than she had at the time. Plus, she'd get a free comfortable trip home to her parents.
I also don't understand why Delaney didn't keep his evidence of the miscreant, Jack Jr., and his cronies doing the graffiti. I'd have kept it and first told his father about it and then the authorities.
I was definitely less than impressed with the book. However, it was well-written and the characters were well-defined. It was somewhat eye opening about California's illegal immigrant population and rather sad in that aspect.
Book Review: Classic - For A Reason
Summary: 5 Stars
I re-read this in 2010 and, well, it's as fresh as it was in 1995, when it first came out.
T.C. Boyle might have referenced cell phones if he had written this today and there's the use of an out-dated Pepsi advertising slogan. Otherwise, there's nothing stale about "The Tortilla Curtain" and its portrayal of the immigration issue in one California community.
The opening line says it all: "Afterward, he tried to reduce it to abstract terms, an accident in a world of accidents, the collision of opposing forces--the bumper of his car and the frail scrambling hunched-over form of a dark little man with a wild look in his eye--but he wasn't very successful."
It's like Boyle is saying "The Tortilla Curtain" is hardly about an abstract issue (immigration, for one). It's about something real and personal. This is a human experience, Boyle screams, and this is not an abstract political tussle. "The Tortilla Curtain" is about the collision of opposing forces. We smack off each other. One human is behind the steering wheel, the other is a helpless pedestrian, hunched over. Like he's almost prepared to get run over. Yet we interact. Immigrants (legal or not) and U.S. citizens rely on each other.
"The Tortilla Curtain" (what a great title, echoing Steinbeck and creating an image of a soft, meaningless divider made out of floppy food) is about human beings and how we treat and view each other as individuals and as a group. The debate over the decision to erect a gate at the Arroyo Blanco Estates, means where Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, call home, may as well be the discussion over whether to build a fence along the border of Mexico. The wealth gap between the Mossbachers and the Mexican immigrants Cándido and América Rincón may as well be the gap between America and Mexico. The view "down" into the ravine where the Rincóns are trying to eke out a living may be the same view most Americans take in their view of the interlopers. Delaney bastes tofu kebabs with his "special honey-ginger marinade." Cándido and América have fried eggs, chiles, roasted "gray birds" of some unknown variety and, what else, tortillas.
The sequence of events that leads to the canyon conflagration at the end is classic. Cándido comes into possession of a free frozen turkey through an act of generosity and neighborliness. It is Thanksgiving. Afterall: what better day would there be to underscore the image of one group of immigrants being treated well by natives of the new land? Cándido has gone inside a "changeless" supermarket where "there wasn't a scent of food, not even a stray odor, as if the smell of a beefsteak or a cheese or even good fresh sawdust was somehow obscene. The light was dead." He is the recipient of the same "naked stares of contempt and disgust." Yet Cándido comes in possession of a frozen turkey. It's "lying there frozen like a brick on the black conveyor belt" and two sharp-dressed guys can't use it. So they give it to Cándido, even though they laugh at his incomprehension of the moment. Back at camp, this frozen turkey needs a fire, of course, and is so thrilled to return to his wife with the prize food. Soon, of course, the wind "plucked the fire out of its bed of coals and with a roar as loud as all the furnaces of hell set it dancing in the treetops."
Boyle's writing alone is always a pleasure. I prefer his purely imagined fiction like "Drop City" and his short stories compared to his attempt to re-create the lives of Frank Lloyd Wright or Dr. Alfred Kinsey. (Although those were enjoyable, too.) But "The Tortilla Curtain" is a classic because it covers so much ground and it's so, well, timeless.
By the way, I "read" this on Audio CD and the reader is Boyle himself. Great stuff.
Book Review: Cruel and nihilistic
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm not sure what TC Boyle is trying to prove with The Tortilla Curtain. Admittedly, I read the book a few years after its expiration date (illegal immigration is nowhere near as prominent a concern now as it was in 1995), but the book's disdain for its characters transcends the significance of its social commentary.
There are two stories here, one about a pair of "liberals", Delaney and Kyra, living in a Los Angeles exurb, and one about a pair of Mexican immigrants, Candido and America, living in a nearby canyon, and they occasionally intersect, usually when something tragic happens. The story begins when Delaney runs into Candido with his car and ends with (this isn't really a spoiler) Delaney and Candido being washed away in a flood.
Indeed, about the only Los Angeles cliché that doesn't factor prominently into the novel is an earthquake. Otherwise, it's bad news from start to finish. Delaney's car is stolen. Kyra very nearly turns into a racist creep. Three family pets die. America is molested, raped, and poisoned. Candido loses all his money more than once, gets beat up, and generally has a horrible time of life. Boyle does not seem to like any of these people, but at least he doesn't try very hard to make me care about them either. The liberals are clueless buffoons and Candido is almost as foolish. America emerges comparatively unscathed, as I never really felt strongly one way or the other about her. Boyle sure does, though; the negative things that happen to her are far worse than anything that happens to the rest of the cast.
What is the point of all of this? It's fairly obvious that the story of Delaney and Kyra is to suggest that people who claim to concern about things but mostly just drink Evian are a bunch of phonies. Boyle makes sure that we know that Delaney in particular is nominally concerned about the environment, diversity, immigration, and so on, without actually involving himself in these things, and by the end of the novel both Delaney and Kyra have become just the casual racists that they chastised their neighbors for being.
The juxtaposition of the story of Kyra and Delaney with the story of America and Candido suggests on the surface that Boyle wants to show us what Delaney and Kyra should be concerned about, but it does not work. Candido and America have come to the United States for no real reason other than to make money. America's descriptions of life back home suggest that, aside from the poverty, it wasn't too bad, and both show nothing but contempt for everyone who actually does have money. The difference between the two groups is that the views of Delaney and Kyra are changed by the bad experiences, while Candido and America just have their stereotypes reinforced.
We're easily made to believe that Delaney and Kyra are bad people because they claim to care but don't. I think we're supposed to root for Candido and America, but I can't bring myself to do it; they don't want to become Americans, they just want to be Mexicans with a different mailing address.
The summary on the back cover suggests that the story is a "tragicomedy", and I think that's the only way to approach this book that works. Although I would like to say that the book is an attempt to justify Pete Wilson's reelection claims, I'm fairly sure that Boyle thought otherwise. But in the end, the only successful stand he really takes is that hypocrisy is bad. Do I really need a 350-page novel to tell me that?
The prose is such that I wouldn't mind reading more of Boyle's work, but only if I can be assured that it's not so misanthropic as this.
Book Review: Too Much Bad Luck Schleprock
Summary: 3 Stars
This contains spoilers, BTW. My stepson asked me to read this book because he had just finished reading it in his English class and they all really enjoyed it and had many robust discussions about it.
I grew up in So Cal, Santa Ana specifically. I'm one of those dying breeds: an Orange County liberal. Initially I thought the book was very compelling -- the author created quite a bit of suspense and interest in how the story of America and Candido would play out. I was hooked. The scene where America heads down the canyon path and runs into the evil two men is very well done. You can almost feel her dread before the violence begins. The writing was high quality.
I was less interested in the oh-so-stereotypical side of the story that focused on self-absorbed Delaney and his self-absorbed wife, Kyra. Oh, and their self-absorbed kid, Jordan. I get it. You don't need to tell me 5 times that the kid is left/wants to play his video games rather than interract with his parents - I got it the FIRST time.
I guess I'm supposed to identify with "Delaney" -- a naive liberal who 'wants' to do the right thing as long as it doesn't interfere too much with his comfortable existence. Oh, and apparently I'm to assume that Topanga Canyon has become a hotbed of illegals wandering the streets and angry yuppies who give them foul looks when they're not running them down with their cars. That's not the Topanga Canyon I knew in the mid-90's...but I GET it that the author's creating a landscape.
But really, who cares about the yuppies? I read the book to get a glimpse (beyond what I already knew) of the lives of illegal immigrants.
What was depicted? The trials of Job pale in comparison. SERIOUSLY. DON'T DO IT! JUST DON'T DO IT! Seriously, Candido (the male protagonist) is SUCH a BAD LUCK SCHLEPROCK that I would ask, no BEG his wife "America" to go back to her parents ASAP.
The trials that Candido and America are subjected to begin as very believable: getting ripped off by coyotes, not getting any steady work, not getting paid for hours they work, being worried about La Migra, being afraid to ask for help, even in serious medical emergencies, getting ripped off by fellow migrants.
However, the author lost me shortly after Candido started a raging conflagration after being gifted by a turkey by some offensive liberal idiots. You knew it HAD to happen, right? There's NO WAY this author would allow THIS couple to enjoy some turkey soup in the Canyon...
That was bad enough, that Candido started a MAJOR FIRE. No, he happened to find a shelter for his in-labor wife at our white protagonist's garden hut...where the white protagonist's cat helped her deliver.
So...Candido kills, cooks and feeds the cat to his wife. Alrighty.
Then, the baby seems to be BLIND! Oh yeah, possibly caused by the rape she experienced earlier even though the author made a point that the rapist used a condom. So is it the crabs that causes blindness or is it that condoms are worthless?
Next, Mr. former liberal,now gun-toting and talking like he needs to shoot someone finds the Candido/America shelter and...a FLOOD WASHES THEM ALL AWAY.
The baby is gone.
I mean, SERIOUSLY. Job's trials weren't even CLOSE to Candido's. It all becomes so ridiculous that I ended up disgusted with the whole book, sad to say.
Book Review: Gripping and accurate- but the ending doesn't measure up!
Summary: 4 Stars
Mr. Boyle's book attempts to raise discussion over the immigration debate in a creative and effective manner. With the introduction of four main characters in very different circumstances, he vividly develops their individual personalities, feelings, pains and desires through a series of challenges that ultimately depict the unavoidable reality: that they are each deeply affected by the actions of the others. Boyle attempts to get readers to take a fresh look at the aging, yet unresolved debate over illegal immigration in the Southwest. By developing his characters and their exploits so thoroughly, Mr. Boyle firmly places the reader into each character's shoes, and makes it a little easier to see some of the unspoken realities of this issue; not the least of which are the human struggles and the unavoidable ethical dilemas that cannot be resolved by taking one extreme position or the other. The obvious question is whether Boyle has created fair characterizations without resorting to the gratuitous use of shallow stereotypes.
While many may feel diferently, I believe that his representations of each character (while at times redundant) were accurate. Hailing from California myself and having been frequently and directly affected by issues raised in this book throughout my own life, I don't feel that Mr. Boyle relied on unrealistic generalizations. In fact, it was apparent to me that Mr. Boyle must have had some personal experiences (or engaged in some extensive research)to have provided the details and descriptions appearing in the book. Since my family originates from both sides of the border, I can confortably say that one would have to be hyper-sensative to be offended by any characterizations in the book.
My primary concern with the book rests with the ending. Without providing any details, I must say that Mr. Boyle owes me either another chapter or a new edition with an ending that measures up to the rest of the book. In the end, I was actually left speculating that my copy was missing some pages. To Mr. Boyle's credit, the reader is drawn closer, into an intimate relationship with each character. Chapter after chapter I became completely invested in the story. As the book builds, one cannot help but hope for some resolve, not necessarily in the immigration debate, but of the personal struggles of the characters who almost seem to deserve it after all the trials they've undergone throughout the book. This sense of satisfaction never comes. And while Mr. Boyle's ending message is thoughtful and profound, the ending's simplicity overshadows its intended impact. Throughout this book, Mr. Boyle effectively avoids opining directly on the topic (or possible solutions) of illegal immigration and chooses to allow the reader the opportunity to form their own conclusions by personally experiencing it through each character's eyes. The author clearly wanted to be consistent by choosing such a safe path to an ending, but it is shallow and abrupt, and lacking the creativity found throughout the book. I suppose if closure is not a prerequisite in your choice of a novel, this book is a great read. The journey is gripping. But if a thoughtful and creative ending is important, it might not be a good investment of time if you end up experiencing the same disappointment I did.