Good Books Lately | The Tortilla Curtain

The Tortilla Curtain
T.C. Boyle. Penguin USA: 1996 (paperback). ISBN: 014023828X. 355 pages.

We found ourselves agreeing with the many critics who call this novel's characters more symbolic than natural, its plot more satiric fable than realistic outcome. Boyle himself claims that he chose the story's two sets of protagonists--the wealthy white liberal Californians and the desperately poor illegal Mexican immigrants--to create the "high contrast of discrepancies" most desirable for a fable. Book group members we have worked with have discovered both much to praise and much to attack in Boyle's tale of political correctness gone wrong, but they have agreed that the novel's intensely controversial subject matter makes it a stimulating book club choice. As one member so succinctly put it, "I didn't exactly enjoy reading this book, but I have really enjoyed discussing it." This novel forces us to confront the dilemma that what we believe in theory we may not be able to support in reality, and encourages us to re-examine our understanding of the "universal" human right to life, liberty, and happiness.

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