Tortilla Curtain
Ratings28
Average rating3.3
Men and women with brown faces and strong backs who risk everything to cross the Mexican border and invade the American Dream are the Okies of the 1990s. Two of them, Candido and America Rincon, have come to Southern California and are living in a makeshift camp deep in a ravine, fighting off starvation.
At the top of Topanga Canyon, 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. And from the moment a freak accident brings Candido and Delaney into intimate contact, the two couples and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding.
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This book was a lot more rape-y than I expected. Not sure exactly how much rape I had expected, but the amount in the book was definitely more.
Also, I didn't like the character Candido at all. At first he had my sympathies, and we were building a relationship with that, but then he turned out to be a huge asshole. The terrible way he treats his wife, his bullshit machismo at the cost of not only his own health but that of his wife and unborn baby, his complete stupidity when dealing with other people (Mexican and American) - all of this destroyed the sympathetic relationship I had with the character. I just ended up hating him.
We listened to this book on the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles and back, and it did pass the time. However, I will not be listening to the final hours of this book now that we are done with driving. I don't especially like the characters and I don't especially care what happens to them.
The plot might make for a decent movie, but it wasn't a very well-written book.
