From the very first page this book had me cringing. The back cover of Tortilla Curtain reads, "...from the moment a freak accident brings Candido and Delaney into intimate contact..." The opening scene is the freak accident and it sets the tone for the entire story. To be honest I cringed my way through the entire book. Like watching a movie with one eye squeezed shut I could barely stand what devastating thing would happen next. There is nothing more tragic than misguided trust laced with preconceived notions about another individual. Reminiscent of House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III Tortilla Curtain is the story of two couples hopelessly fated to forever misjudge and distrust each other. The color of their skin provides a blinder for each pair. While how they react to their blindness differs from person to person their prejudices identically driven. Delaney Mossbacher and his second wife, Kyra, are a well-to-do couple living in the newly gated community of Arroyo Blanco. They worry about coyotes taking their family pets and the real estate market (Kyra is a successful realtor). Below them, scraping out an existence in the dessert are Candido Rincon and his wife, America, two illegal immigrants from Mexico. They worry about where they will get their next meal and when they will be sent back across the border. Two totally different worlds living within yards of one another. Inevitably the two will collide with disastrous results. ( )

T. Coraghessan Boyle wrote this book -- a contemporary take on The Grapes of Wrath -- in 1995, when “illegal alien paranoia” was still in its infancy. In that, the book is prophetic.

Two couples serve as competing protagonists. First we have Delaney and Kyra, wealthy and successful, living the dream with their elegant home+pool+maid in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Their liberalism is tested when both the natural world and the international world threaten to overrun their comfortable lives. Cándido and América also want a comfortable life, but since they crossed the border from Mexico they have faced nothing but disaster. Now they camp in a nearby canyon as they search desperately for work, food, and shelter. América will give birth soon, and when Delaney’s car hits Cándido on a twisting canyon road, the immigrants’ hopes begin a steady decline from which it seems they can never recover. These four lives become strangely twisted together in a terrible, inexplicable knot as the suburbanites and the immigrants struggle for the same piece of land, the same American dream.

Boyle is adept at stringing the reader along. The dangling carrot of “what will happen next?” is forever driving the plot from catastrophe to catastrophe. I won’t deny that the book is a page-turner, nor that it forces Americans to reexamine prevalent views on immigration. I was glad that selfish complacency is questioned, and that the other side of the story – the immigrant side – is shown with such tender sympathy. Boyle is a man who knows how to craft a story. However, I can’t help but feel that the tale lacks reality. Its characters are too pat, its purpose too clear, its unrelenting crisis-mode too carefully managed. This story feels as though it took shape in an outline, with the characters and events moved about until they fit perfectly into a preconceived plan that can only result in a certain ending. For all its truths, there is one missing: the simple unpredictability of life, the ray of light that follows a heavy downpour, the kind stranger who is not unheard of even today. There is a sense of that only at the end, and then it comes a bit too late to be savored. This story was shaped by a writer, not by life itself, and that leaves it a little cold, a little calculating. Good stuff, but not quite my cup of tea. ( )

I read this for one of my book club choices....fantastic book.

Cándido and América, Candidido's wife, cross the border looking for a better life in America. The book begins with Candido being hit by a car and then hiding.

Many heart-wrenching thing happen to the couple....the book totally keeps your interest.

You will love it. ( )

This book according to my CA history professor is the greatest modern novel. Don't know what he is talking about, like "Catcher in the Rye" I had a hard time liking the characters. If you don't like them, then it is really hard to care about what happens in the story. The problems of Candido and America go from bad to worse to insane. It was as if Boyle just threw a dart at a list of nasty stuff and decided what next would befall these two.

No way would these Mexicans have felt this isolated, they would have found kinfolk from their village, not everyone was a shark. The ending was horrible (Spoiler Alert) burning down the forest with a Thanksgiving turkey? What? And the mudslide ending really happened so fast it was difficult to understand who died and who didn't. Others in my class when we discussed the book said that they also had problems understanding the ending.

5-2009 ( )

I read this book while recovering from surgery, a time when it was hard to focus on reading....and this book did the trick as far as holding my attention and keeping me focused. It was a very engaging and thoroughly thought provoking look at social issues surrounding illegal immigration in Southern California. Told with compassion and also a biting satirical voice, this book is a must read for anyone interested in living an examined life while up against moral dilemmas put on our collective plates at this time in our evolution as sharers of the planet Earth. ( )