The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle

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Book Summary Information

• ISBN13: 9780140238280
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of The Tortilla Curtain

Book Review: California Dreaming
Summary: 5 Stars

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 the reader's time with slow set-up, and heads straight for the meat of his story.

From that one accident, the lives of the two men and their families move in tight orbits around each other, though they never discover it. They can't communicate, because they don't share a common language, and they're doomed forever to misunderstand one another. Each thinks the other to be something he isn't, and as they wade through a morass of non-comprehension, leading to a cataclysmic confrontation, both watch everything they thought they knew about themselves and the world around them crumble under the weight of suspicion, ignorance, and doubt.

You really ought to read the book.

Q: But you make it sound like there's even more going on than just the plot. What all is this book trying to tell us?

A: It's about California. The two characters are emblematic of the spirit and nature of the state. Bear in mind, the California of the Beach Boys hasn't existed since about 1974. California is a divided state. Wealthy white people like Delaney get ahead by working and living with a go-go-go drive that leaves them too occupied to enjoy anything they've accomplished. These people are dependent on the working poor like Cándido for cheap, plentiful labor, but they despise these aliens for the very reason they need them-they work tirelessly, cheaply, plentifully, without paying taxes or being regulated.

Q: Is California really like that?

A: By and large. When I was younger I thought the Beach Boys' California must still exist, especially since I didn't notice the kind of life Boyle describes when I was attending high school in San Diego. However, that was over ten years ago. Having gone back as an adult, I have seen that California is a fragmented state, carved up into characterless subdivisions, ruled by glossy high-tech corporations, and consuming more of the natural world than it returns. The success-oriented California culture leaves no room for slacking off, and eats the few remaining pleasure-seekers and beach-bunnies for lunch. And it's fueled by the bulk labor of the inexhaustible supply of illegal immigrants that cross the border every day. It's all there to be read, you really ought to read the book.

Q: But what is the book ABOUT?

A: Everything I've said and more. It's sophisticated literature and it's lunchtime reading. It's brutally honest and it's humane. It sympathizes with the characters even as it's damning them. There's only one thing I can say about it: you really ought to read the book.

Summary of The Tortilla Curtain

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