The Tortilla Curtain: T.C. Boyle

New
Paperback
2019
$12.40

Winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger; 'examines America's guerilla war between the haves and have-notes with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities'(Observer) When Delaney Mossbacher knocks down a Mexican pedestrian, he neither reports the accident nor takes his victim to hospital. Instead the man accepts $20 and limps back to poverty and his pregnant 17-year-old wife, leaving Delaney to return to his privileged life in California. But these two men are fated against each other, as Delaney attempts to clear the land of the illegal immigrants who he thinks are turning his state park into a ghetto, and a boiling pot of racism and prejudice threatens to spill over.

Synopsis

Winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger; 'examines America's guerilla war between the haves and have-notes with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities'(Observer) When Delaney Mossbacher knocks down a Mexican pedestrian, he neither reports the accident nor takes his victim to hospital. Instead the man accepts $20 and limps back to poverty and his pregnant 17-year-old wife, leaving Delaney to return to his privileged life in California. But these two men are fated against each other, as Delaney attempts to clear the land of the illegal immigrants who he thinks are turning his state park into a ghetto, and a boiling pot of racism and prejudice threatens to spill over.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Edition: 1
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 10 Jan 2019
ISBN 10: 1526608871
ISBN 13: 9781526608871
Book Overview: Winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger; 'examines America's guerilla war between the haves and have-notes with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities'(Observer)

Media Reviews

This novel examines America's guerrilla war between the haves and have-nots with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities ... rock'n'roll, full of exciting, vivid American landscapes, utopian, manic * Observer *
If Dickens were alive today he would be writing this sort of book -- Rosie Boycott * The Times, Books of the Year *
A harrowing, even horrific, tale of an immigrant couple's venture into California, and the shockingly brutal reception they receive ... a remarkable feat of imaginative empathy * Daily Telegraph *
Thrilling ... it's the same set up as Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities but Boyle immediately enlivens it * Independent on Sunday *
Stirring ... The Tortilla Curtain confirms Boyle's reputation as a novelist of exuberance and invention ... It also adds to his fictional range an open-hearted compassion for those whom society fears and reviles * New York Times Book Review *
A bold, strange novel ... a hectic satire on LA liberalism and real estate - Tom Wolfe meets Steinbeck * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *
Irresistible ... Boyle is a gifted and empathic satirist, the finest craftsman masked as a pop-literary author current American fiction has -- Bret Easton Ellis * Vogue *
Lays on the line of our national cult of hypocrisy. Comically and painfully he details the smug wastefulness of the haves and the vile misery of the have-nots -- Barbara Kingsolver
A powerful novel ... One of the best books I've read this year * Marie Claire *
What makes Boyle's book so good is not only its juggernaut plot, but also the author's keen eye for satire ... He has achieved that rarest of literary doubles - creating a message novel that is also a thundering good read * Esquire *
There isn't a contemporary American writer who can top Boyle's vivid prose and ironic style * Newsweek *
Relentless ... Boyle is a great stylist, capable of wild and imaginative feats of language and diversion, using irony and humour in a way that suggests nothing is capable of surviving his coruscating wit * Glasgow Herald *
A 1990s West Coast counterpart to The Bonfire of the Vanities, and certainly as inclusive in its treatment of the problems of Los Angeles as Tom Wolfe was of New York -- Paul Gambaccini * The Times, Books of the Year *
Succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel ... A book to appreciate as we peer at the faces of strangers outside our windows, and wall ourselves in * Boston Globe *

Author Bio

T. C. Boyle is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels including The Tortilla Curtain, Drop City, San Miguel and The Terranauts, and ten collections of stories, most recently T. C. Boyle Stories II. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages and has won both the PEN/Malamud and Rea Awards in recognition of his short fiction. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and lives in California. tcboyle.com