Rating: 
Summary: Should be required reading for all California schools!
Review: Not only is this book entertaining, it is also a chronicled tragedy of what happens to immigrants who come to California
unprepared and illegally as well as a tale of the loss of humanity of those who inhabit the "upper class ghettos".
Chapter after chapter you are left to think "what else could happen to these people?"
Read this book, you'll find it fascinating whether you live in California or not!
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough and fascinating juxtaposition of South Bay cultures
Review: Driving through Topanga Canyon, I see myself through
the eyes of a nameless transient on the side of the road;
one who has his own very human view of the world, and
perhaps, catches my seeming indifferent gaze through
the glint of late afternoon sun reflecting off my windshield.
And so goes the wild ride. This book is two stories,
each with its own set of characters and concerns;
witnesses and contributors to the same set of events
which unravel over several hot August weeks in
Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles.
If you're fascinated by the collision of cultures in
modern America, and if you've been drawn
into the time-bending, literate style of Faulkner's
Light In August, then you'll find this book an enlightening and thought-provoking read
Rating:
Summary: There, but for the grace of God...
Review: Recommended by my friend Monica (a fellow bibliophile whom I met on a book chat board), "The Tortilla Curtain" has to be one of the saddest tales I've ever read.The parallels between Delaney + Kyra and Candido + America are stronger than the differences. So often, near-similar events happen to both couples. However, what seems like tragedy to the privileged first couple is NOTHING compared to the agonies faced by the second couples. Their lives come so close to one another, and indeed they meet -- but they never overlap to the extent that Candido and America will ever enjoy the fortune of Delaney and Kyra. (Incidentally, I don't know if it's the author's intention, but according to babynames.com "Delaney" means "Descendant of the Challenger" and "Kyra" means " Ladylike." I couldn't find a definition for "Candido," and America's name is simply cruel irony, as you'll learn when you buy this book.) And just when you think it can't get any worse. . . it goes beyond your imagination. And you just KNOW what's going to happen to the baby. The scariest thing about this story is that it's probably based on truth. This book was dark and miserable and not at all entertaining. You know what? Neither is life. I read this book when I was as low as I thought I could ever go. Above all else, this book will open your eyes to what you have -- and to what other's don't have. Unless you're a darned fool, "The Tortilla Curtain" will make you VERY grateful.
Rating: 
Summary: just dreadfull
Review: i really thought that this book was poorly written, it had a bad view on the mexican ways. it made me feel anger, sadness, embarrasment, and just plain sorryness towards the author. i hope he has writttne better books than this one.
Rating:
Summary: At home or homesick...that is the question
Review: This the fourth TC Boyle novel I have read and this one exhilerated and exhausted me. Set in California I was struck by the comparison of America, the illegal alien teenage mother to be and the upper class male Delaney who both seem to struggle with homesickness (America yearning for Mexico and Delaney for New York) while they attempt to adapt to all that California is supposed to mean to them.
Then there are Candido, America's husband and Kyra, Delaney's wife who don't fight it and accept their roles in this land of opportunity that is California (Candido simply wanting to work to live and Kyra the workaholic not knowing how to relax and be fun).
This juxtaposition of homesickness for what was familiar and acceptance of the norms of California society give the novel the right combination to grab the reader by the throat and strangle them with the reality of California lifestyles;the plastics and the poorest of the poor.
BRAVO TC Boyle!BRAVO!
Rating:
Summary: It depends on how you read it.
Review: I started reading the book as it was intended, in one go, but quickly found I didn't much care what happened to the superficial, self involved, totally Granola, Delaney and Kyra and her spoilt child.
Cándido on the other hand, that was much closer to real life, things many of us can associate with, not enough money, not enough food, worrying about the kids, trying not to appear useless and hopeless to your partner or husband or wife. And América, well, she had the same feelings a lot of us have felt, she loves him, she hates him, she gets so sad she's totally indifferent to him....That's life.
I read it all the way through and found it a bit distracting, however, when I re-read it, I stopped reading the book as a whole and skipped from chapter to chapter following the plight of Cándido and América, and totally ignoring Delaney and his slappable wife.
It is a sad and desperate tale. Wishing you had hot water and a toilet and some food, you can feel it when you read it if you have ever been poor. If you know how it feels, this feel the same way. It is very well done. Cándido is a fool and he knows he is, that makes it so much sadder to read, he can see his life going down-hill and dragging his girlfriend with him but he doesn't know what to do to stop it. He makes the best of what he's got and it's still not good enough. It's just too sad.
Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Unrealistic
Review: I actually liked the book and looked forward to what was coming next. But I think the "bad luck" of Candido and America became too unbelievable and Candido's lack of common sense was staggering.
I am not saying that their situation had an easy solution, but after getting beat and robbed the solution was pretty clear - head for the INS and get deported back to Mexico. There is a reason why illegal immigrants head for the US, but after reading this book it would seem that the reality of the situation would keep everybody back and never want to come over the border.
I do not speak from ignorance on this issue. We immigrated from South America back in 1973 and my cousin came over the border illegally in 1983. I am well aware of the immigration problems from both the illegal aliens viewpoint and from the American citizen viewpoint (myself being a US citizen). As other have pointed out, it is just way too exaggerated. The disparity between the rich and poor in this book is no different from a dirt poor American homeless family living in Colorado and one that lives in a winter home near a ski slope.
I would still recommend the book though. I think that it does shed light on things that the average person doesn't really think about when they talk about the immigration problems that we have.
Rating:
Summary: Shows true hypocrisy, but still very exaggerated.
Review: Living in California, I sense the extreme hypocrisy amongst many of the state's residents. This is a state with a large population from out of state yet has a tendency to be isolationist at times. A place that votes largely liberal, yet only a few years ago passed the extremely controversial and conservative Prop. 187. A place that is expensive to live, yet relies on low-paid illegal immigrants to shoulder much of the low end jobs. This is what Boyle brings out in this book; a book about two simple couples living on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Boyle describes a typical yuppie upper-middle class couple who moved to the outskirts to avoid urban living. The typical "White Flight" family. He describes an incident where the man from this couple runs his car into the an illegal immigrant, his exact counterpart. While the white couple has everything and lives a very posh yet uneventful live, the illegal immigrant and his wife exist on the opposite end of the spectrum, living in extreme poverty and hardship. Boyle does a wonderful job of splicing those two different ways of life together to further show the economic and class divide without explicit political pandering. He also manages to show the transformation of well off individual who is open minded to a man who is borderline racist.
While good, the main problem is that the two extremes are overdone. Without going into details, the hardships on the illegal immigrant couple are so increasingly sad and horrendous that it borders on ridiculous and moves to the realm unbelievable. On the other end of the spectrum, the white couple's "problems" are so vain that reading about them is pure drudgery at times. For example, he goes into much detail, pages and pages, about a wall being built. If he toned down the dullness on one end, and the horrors on the other, the credibility and believability would become vastly apparent.
All in all it's a decent book, but could have been much better.
Rating:
Summary: Tortilla Curtain = differentiated view on immigration?
Review: In the book "The Tortilla Curtain", T.C. Boyle evaluates a over the years still relevant and often discussed topic - illegal immigration in the USA - and can be seen as a representative of the modern realism movement, describing this " historical situation from a new social and political standpoint" (Malcom Bradbury "Modern realist Fiction" 1988).
The epigram at the beginning of the book, an excerpt from the novel "Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, puts Boyle's work in a certain tradition.
In the past years, many artists, writers, producers etc. tried to focus on this topic more closely.
Boyle's intention writing this book, is the attempt to presentate the topic in a very differentiated way, including as many different opinions and points of view as possible.
The story is set in Topanga Canyon (Los Angeles) - a wealthy region near the dividing line between America and Mexico, between rich and poor - the tortilla curtain.
Many descriptive details are making is easy to place in the geographic area.
The story is based on the life of four main characters, coming from different social and cultural backgrounds.
On the one hand you get to know the well organized and wealthy Californian couple Delaney and Kyra Mosbacher but on the other hand you get also aware of the delicate and dangerous life of a illegal immigrated couple, called América and Cándido Rincón.
Delaney, a journalist for a natural magazine, and Kyra his wife, a successful real estate agent, live in a exclusive and secure community, overlooking the Topanga Canyon.
The 17 years old pregnant América camps with her 13 years older husband Cándido within the canyon, enduring hunger, crime, pain and abuse.
The story starts with a car accident, where the two "worlds" meet the first time.
A chain of events follows, leading to a dramatic confrontation at the end of this borderline grotesque.
From now on life is determined by one setback after another.
Boyle chose the third - person narration, switching from one nationality to the other at the beginning of each chapter.
One of the main strengths of the book are the lively descriptions of the main characters.
Delaney's attitude towards foreigners develops, referring to the change of his point of view concerning Hispanics, throughout the book.
At the beginning he calls himself a liberal humanist and becomes, forced by circumstances and several events, a racist.
Also Cándido, his Mexican counterpart, is three dimensional.
Flashbacks are giving the opportunity to get to know him more closely, his way of thinking, his attitude towards life and the reasons for his acting and we can also gain knowledge about the immigration system in the USA, concerning for example the flashbacks where he remembers a deportation or how he crossed the border.
At first glance, taking the symbolic meaning of the names of some characters into account, ( for example América - a young wife, full of faith and dreams for/ of a better future in the USA) the topic seems to be presented in a very superficial way - only in black and white.
Besides, the Americans are presented in a sometimes a bit exaggerated and harsh seeming way, that one can have the impression of getting persuaded, feeling pity for the Mexican protagonists.
But still their are also some interesting flat characters, making the view more differentiated.
There is for example José Navidad, a violent, inhuman "bad-Mexican", who rapes América; or Mary an alcoholic, American hippy and Tod Sweet the " good- American", who represents the convinced and active humanist.
At the beginning one will share an alternating sympathy for both nationalities, seeing them endure separate fates in a form of cultural or environmental predestination, but the use of irony and sarcasm changes this attitude throughout the novel.
Delaney and Kyra for example, content interiors of the American Dream, live just a few miles away from the starvation, pain and loss of Cándido and his wife.
The fact that America defines itself as a nation of immigrants leads to an interesting question: What right do (immigrated) Americans (themselves) have to exclude other people embodying different social and cultural backgrounds such as the Mexicans?
Caused by some exaggerated descriptions of the characters and the plot, one can hardly escape the critic drawn on the American society with its superficial liberal and humanistic ideals.
The book is worth reading, including many different aspect on the topic immigration such as overpopulation, unemployment, crime or a debate on "gated communities" and gives so a good reasonable and general idea about illegal immigration in the USA.
Sara
Rating: 
Summary: Well-intentioned piece of trash
Review: As someone who grew up in Topanga and witnessed the class struggle portrayed in this book first hand, I was excited to read The Tortilla Curtain. The dynamics between the Latino population and the incoming yuppies during the early-nineties is a story well worth telling and makes for a great opportunity to address socio-political concerns within a naturally dramatic framework. Unfortunately, the writer who chose to tell this story has no understanding of humanity, let alone the community he pretends to document. Page after page I looked for one character or situation that was even remotely human -- to no avail.
Tortilla reads like one of those hysterical paperbacks from the 1950s. It perpetuates every small-minded, lazy stereo-type imaginable while shedding absolutely no new light on anything what-so-ever. For the purpose of making his book as melodramatic as possible, he creates a fictitious community where the mountains seeth with evil, white people are afraid to leave their homes, Latino rapists abound, and no one ever has one single conversation or thought that reflects any empathy at all.
This book is not only a total waste of time, but for someone who actually believes what they read, it will only make them more pessimistic, hopeless, hateful and ignorant then they were before they read it.
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