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Powell's Q&A, Kids' Q&A | February 2, 2012

Emily Winfield Martin: IMG Kids' Q&A: Emily Winfield Martin

2 comments By Emily Winfield Martin

Describe your new book. Oddfellow's Orphanage is a series of stories/vignettes that tell the tale of the newest arrival to a curious orphanage, a... Continue »
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    Oddfellow's Orphanage

    Emily Winfield Martin 9780375869952
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The Tortilla Curtain

by T. C. Boyle

The Tortilla Curtain Cover

 

Awards

Winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: he a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine. And from the moment a freak accident brings Candido and Delaney into intimate contact, these four and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding.

Review:

"A compelling story of myopic misunderstanding and mutual tragedy." Chicago Tribune

Review:

"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." The Boston Globe

Review:

"What Boyle does, and does well, is lay on the line our national cult of hypocrisy. Comically and painfully he details the smug wastefulness of the haves and the vile misery of the have-nots....Red-blooded Americans of every stripe will find themselves rooting for Candido and America, right up to the rip-roaring deus ex machina ending that screams out that we are all in this together." Barbara Kingsolver, The Nation

Review:

"This highly engaging story subtly plays on our consciences, forcing us to form, confirm, or dispute social, political, and moral viewpoints. This is a profound and tragic tale, one that exposes not only a failed American Dream, but a failing America." Booklist

Synopsis:

Part of the Bloomsbury "Classic Reads" series.
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About the Author

T.C. Boyle is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels and has published seven collections of short fiction. He received the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel World's End and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. His stories appear regularly in the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, and Playboy.

Visit his Web site at www.tcboyle.com.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
S Cohn, January 12, 2008 (view all comments by S Cohn)
As an avid T.C. Boyle fan, I had high expectations of this book and it did not disappoint. It is the story of several intersecting lives but primarily those of the Mossbachers and the Rincons. The tapestry of circumstances grows larger and more complex as these couples gradually come to despise and fear what their counterparts have come to represent. Delaney could have been written as a caricature but Boyle allows the doubts and passions of this secure upper-middle-class Topanga resident to lend depth and breadth to someone in whom every reader has at least some flicker of recognition.
Although I live on the other coast of the country, the omnipresence of domestic workers and landscapers with brown faces is as true here as it is in Boyle's fictional Southern California. Making their stories not just sympathetic but also complicated lends reality to these faces without sinking into condescension. I really appreciated that about the novel and found the ending surrealistic but thematically genuine.

I was reliving the reality of the book for days afterward and thought about myself in many of those characters for a long time afterwards. I would also highly recommend reading Tino Georgiou's bestselling novel--The Fates--if you haven't yet!!
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780747574644
Publisher:
BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC
Location:
N
Author:
Boyle, T. C.
Copyright:
2004
Publication Date:
20040705
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
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The Tortilla Curtain
0 stars - 0 reviews
$ In Stock
Product details pages BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC - English 9780747574644 Reviews:
"Review" by , "A compelling story of myopic misunderstanding and mutual tragedy."
"Review" by , "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."
"Review" by , "What Boyle does, and does well, is lay on the line our national cult of hypocrisy. Comically and painfully he details the smug wastefulness of the haves and the vile misery of the have-nots....Red-blooded Americans of every stripe will find themselves rooting for Candido and America, right up to the rip-roaring deus ex machina ending that screams out that we are all in this together."
"Review" by , "This highly engaging story subtly plays on our consciences, forcing us to form, confirm, or dispute social, political, and moral viewpoints. This is a profound and tragic tale, one that exposes not only a failed American Dream, but a failing America."
"Synopsis" by , Part of the Bloomsbury "Classic Reads" series.
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