The Barbarian Nurseries

Undocumented Mexican immigrant Araceli Ramirez works as a live-in housekeeper and cook for the Torres-Thompson family – Scott Torres, Maureen Thompson, and their children. They live in a hillside gated community overlooking the Pacific Ocean in a suburb of Los Angeles. Due to an economic downturn, they have let go the children’s nanny and the gardener, so Araceli is now their only domestic staff. Scott and Maureen get into a serious argument over finances in which the two leave the house separately, each believing the other has their two young boys. Araceli has never been close to the boys, and after the couple does not return for several days, she decides to take them to their paternal grandfather, whose address she has found on show more the back of a photograph. This takes the three on a quest through the city of Los Angeles, a place these sheltered children had never before visited. It also leads to a series of events the result in Araceli being accused of child endangerment.

The setting in Orange County California, and the multiple ethnicities in Los Angeles, form the core of the narrative, and the descriptions capture the multi-cultural landscape of the region. It is a contemporary novel that confronts the current immigration debate by portraying complexities rather than stereotypes. The characters are from a wide variety of backgrounds and situations. Araceli is a strong person who feels misunderstood. She formerly attended art school at a university in Mexico City but is working in domestic service, which comes with its own baggage in the form of assumptions made by others, so no one really sees her for who she is. Maureen and Scott do not want people to judge their parenting skills as deficient, so they veer just a tad from the truth, which unintentionally puts Araceli in the position of “bad guy” from a social media perspective. The situation is just so realistic and believable. It is about communication problems, and the typical way many people want to find a scapegoat for societal issues that are truly much more complicated than can be summarized in a media “sound bite.”

It is well-written with a detailed setting and believable characters. It contains a number of non-translated Spanish phrases. For me, this added to the feeling of immersion, but if you are not a Spanish speaker, you may want to keep a translation tool handy. There are a few contrivances that seem a bit far-fetched from a plot perspective but were needed to encompass the diversity of social classes and races present in this part of California. It tackles a serious topic, but actually contains a good bit of humor. It is an artful work that tells a socially relevant story in an interesting way.

4.5 show less

Audiobook performed by Frankie Alvarez

Scott Torres and his wife, Maureen Thompson, live in an ocean-view Spanish-style McMansion with their three children and a staff they can no longer afford. The gardener and nanny have already been let go when we meet Ariceli Ramirez, “the last Mexican standing” in the household – the last, that is, except for Senor Torres, who is only half-Mexican and doesn’t even speak Spanish. An argument over Maureen’s excessive spending leads to a brief physical altercation, and both Scott and Maureen leave the house in a huff, sure that the other will “get the point” when s/he has to care for the house and children on his/her own. Except, that neither tells the other s/he is leaving, nor, more show more importantly, bothers to tell Ariceli. Left on her own with the two boys – Brandon, age eleven, and Keenan, age eight – she is first incensed and then worried about how she will manage, and for how long she will have to. She tries but fails to reach the parents via their cell phones and repeated calls to Scott’s office. In fact, she tries every phone number on the carefully detailed “emergency” list posted on the refrigerator. Finally, after three days, with their food supply exhausted, and fearing what would happen if she calls the police, Ariceli decides to find the boys’ paternal grandfather – her only clue an old photo with an address written on the back. And, so she sets out with the boys on a grand adventure towards central Los Angeles.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this novel and it turned out quite differently from where I thought it was headed. Tobar has written a social satire that examines the division and lack of understanding between two interdependent groups – the affluent suburbanites living in their gated communities versus the nearly invisible cadre of workers, mostly immigrants, many undocumented, who work to maintain the façade of perfection the affluent demand.

The three main characters are all flawed. Ariceli, educated in art history in her native Mexico City, is angry with having to work as a domestic; she is sullen and sarcastic, in thought if not always verbally. Maureen considers herself a perfect mother, but is consumed by the need to spend more money to achieve that perfection; her children’s birthday parties have to be orchestrated, her garden always magazine worthy. Scott has always been a good provider and a successful programmer, but as his inexperience with finances leads to economic disaster he reverts to adolescent behavior, playing computer games and flirting with a female co-worker. That is not to say that they are all flaws and no virtues. Scott and Maureen are obviously caring parents. Ariceli is courageous and resourceful, and shows tenderness to the boys despite her avowed disinterest in (dislike of?) children. When all are thrust into the limelight as a result of that one weekend’s events, they have to finally face some harsh truths about themselves, and all eventually rise to the occasion.

Tobar did get a bit preachy in the last third of the book, as he railed against the media “talking heads,” the injustices of the American legal system, and knee-jerk reactions of the politicians and populace. But he did have some members of each of these groups behave well – a Child Protective Services worker who insisted on seeing the truth of the situation, or a judge who refused to bow to pressure from the DA’s office.

I liked that the story didn’t have a neat resolution, either. I don’t want to include any spoilers so I won’t say more, but the ending Tobar gave us was realistic.

Frankie Alvarez does a fine job performing the audiobook. I liked his pacing and the various voices he used to differentiate the characters. show less

The central plot of The Barbarian Nurseries involves the family of Scott Torres and Maureen Thompson, who bought their home in an exclusive Orange County gated community when the software company they launched was acquired several years earlier, enabling a new lifestyle maintained with the help of three Spanish-speaking domestic employees. But now the recession has come to their single-income household, and they’ve had to let the gardener and the nanny go, adding to the work of their live-in housekeeper Araceli Ramirez--not that anyone discussed this with her. There’s not much discussion of anything in the Torres-Thompson home, really, but there are increasingly frequent arguments about money; the morning after one of those show more arguments, Araceli discovers that both Scott and Maureen have left the house--but their sons, 11-year-old Brandon and 8-year-old Kenan, are still at home. Two days and assorted miscommunications later, neither parent has returned, and Araceli is weary; she wasn’t hired to take care of children. The only extended-family member she knows about is Scott’s father, and the only clue she has to his whereabouts is an old photo taken years earlier in East Los Angeles--but Araceli’s people don’t move around much, so she has no reason to think he wouldn’t still be there, and she decides that the best course of action would be to deliver the boys to their grandfather until their parents return. And when the parents do return--separately, as they left--they’re distressed to find that both their sons and their maid are missing.

The Barbarian Nurseries is primarily a plot-driven novel, but much of the plot is underpinned by contemporary themes that have particular resonance in Southern California: socio-economic and class conflict, notably that involving recent Spanish-speaking immigrants, political and media opportunism arising from those conflicts, and exactly how “assimilated Latinos”--long-term or native-born residents who look “white” and whose only daily use of the Spanish language is their own last names--fit into the picture. A less weighty, but equally SoCal, theme concerns keeping up appearances--a lifestyle you really can’t afford, a persona and self-presentation that overrides genuine intimacy and connection.

By shifting perspectives between Maureen, Scott, Araceli, and various secondary characters, Tobar is able to explore a range of attitudes and experiences of modern life in and around Greater Los Angeles, as well as reflections on how it’s changed in recent decades. I found some of the perspectives quite insightful and enlightening. However, a trade-off of presenting such a varied cast of characters can be that development of individuals suffers, and I think that’s an issue here. I couldn’t sustain much sympathy for Scott and Maureen, and I felt that Maureen in particular was more of a “type” than an individual. That said, the novel hinges on Araceli, and I thought she was brought to life with complexity and humanity. I also enjoyed Brandon Torres-Thompson, the 11-year-old. He’s bright, bookish and imaginative, and has been sheltered to the degree that he seems to give fiction and fact equal weight as he encounters the world; I’ve known a few kids like him. (I’ve lived with a kid like him.)

The blurb at the head of the publisher’s page for The Barbarian Nurseries suggests that it is a “a twenty-first century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities--Los Angeles’ great panoramic social novel.” Sometimes that catalog copy is effective shorthand for what a book offers and sometimes it’s not, but in this case it’s not far off the mark. I think it could provoke some thoughtful and spirited discussion, particularly among Southern California readers and their book groups. show less

Los Angeles in all its diversity, from gated communities in the hills to blighted urban neighborhoods. Hector Tobar focuses on the plight of an undocumented domestic worker, Araceli, who is mistakenly left to care for two young boys when their parents check out on each other at the same time. Neither parent realizes they've left the boys alone in the house with Araceli, and she is ill equipped for, and mostly uninterested in, taking care of them. She embarks on a bus and train journey to deliver them to their grandfather, even though she isn't sure where he lives any longer. The boys are exposed to a vastly different world from the privileged enclave where they live, and Araceli taps into a community for aid she didn't know existed. show more Eventually, she is reported as a kidnapper and the law intervenes in a very Kafkaesque way.

The story is interesting enough to sustain the book, but none of the characters are particularly palatable or interesting on their own. In fact, most of them, including Araceli, are unlikable to the point of distaste. The urban locales of Los Angeles kept me reading when I wanted to abandon the book.

3 bones!!! show less

If you read one book set in or about Southern California, this should be it. Sardonic,sometimes comical, it rarely descends into caricature. Never into farce.

This sounded like it would be a funny book. It wasn't. It is about the stereotypical California family doing well before the financial crash, and their Mexican help, most of whom are let go in the beginning of the book due to financial constraints and how the parents can't do without them. The main part of the story is about how the children wind up in the care of the Mexican cook Araceli,through some incident. What that incident is I don't know, because this book bored me to tears and I could not continue reading it. I wonder if the author was paid by the word, because this is the wordiest book I have read in a long time. Every time the Mexican cook makes an appearance we get endless narration of what she is thinking, feeling, show more believes. This is true of every character and the information is never interesting nor required for the story. The other problem I had with what little I got through this book was while the stereotyping of the narcissistic upper middle class Californians was repeated over and over, the same was true of how wonderful, perfect pleasant, hardworking the Mexicans were. I am tired of being preached to about how they just want to be in the USA to work hard and do the jobs Americans don't do. This may not have been the case throughout the book, but I will not know because I didn't care enough about the story after the first 75 pages to continue.
Here is an example of how painfully wordy the book is. It is Araceli the cook describing Pepe the grounds keeper who is let go before the reader ever meets him in the book.

"Pepe never had any problems getting the lawn mower started. When he reached down to pull the cord it caused his bicep to escape his sleeve, revealing a mass of taut copper skin that hinted at other patches of skin and muscle beneath the old cotton shirts he wore. Araceli thought there was art in the stains on Pepe’s shirts; they were an abstract expressionist whirlwind of greens, clayish ocher, and blacks made by grass, soil, and sweat. A handful of times she had rather boldly brought her lonely fingertips to these canvases. When Pepe arrived on Thursdays, Araceli would open the curtains in the living room and spray and wipe the squeaky clean windows just so she could watch him sweat over the lawn and imagine herself nestled in the protective cinnamon cradle of his skin: and then she would laugh at herself for doing so. I am still a girl with silly daydreams. Pepe’s disorderly masculinity broke the spell of working and living in the house and when she saw him in the frame of the kitchen window she could imagine living in the world outside, in a home with dishes of her own to wash, a desk of her own to polish and fret over, in a room that wasn’t borrowed from someone else".
The author can clearly write, the problem for me was he did way to much of it, in this book. show less

Contemporary fiction at its finest. The Barbarian Nurseries depicts one family's marital struggles as they live the American dream and cope with their relationship, parenting, and present-day financial insecurity in L.A. The story has a strong sense of place, but it's not set in the L.A. of movie stars and Disneyland. It's the L.A. where families really live.

Both parents separately decide to take a temporary break, and leave without telling each other, or their maid Araceli, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. As a bewildered Araceli makes one uninformed, but thoughtful decision after another during the parent's absence; the story becomes a real page-turner. I could not put it down until I found out what happened to the kids, and to the show more parents when they realized what they'd done, and to Araceli once her ordeal was over. show less