When I told my reading group I was about to read T.C. Boyle's "The Tortilla Curtain," I garnered mixed comment. One person gave it a dreadful review; another said I'd love it. The latter opinion won out, praise the relevant deities -- loved, loved, loved this terrifically written, imagined and entirely contemporary novel. It's the Silicon-Valley-Reads-One-Book selection for 2007 -- and it couldn't be a more apposite choice for the area. Finest kind indeed.

This book was great for awhile but the trials and tribulations finally went over the top. It went from being believable and evoking empathy and sympathy to reaching beyond anyone's ability to accept it as even vaguely possible.

This story while somewhat interesting was a bit contrived. I would not really recommend this one.

T.C. Boyle has taken a story that in another author's hands may have turned into melodramatic movie-of-the-week material. Boyle has proven himself to be a writer of the highest caliber here. The story of America and Candido is poignantly juxtaposed with that of Delaney and Kyra, and the result will make you cringe, cry, and from page one, care. Boyle has exposed the ugliness of humanity. No matter how "liberal" and openminded we might think we are, we are all capable of anger, hatred, prejudice, and ignorance. It is not something to be proud of, but it is something to be aware of. With a greater understanding of who we are, we can make better decisions in the future, and hopefully make choices that are more compassionate, more empathetic, and perhaps, more humane.

Having lived in many countries where I initially do not know the language, I particularly paid attention to the opportunities for understanding that were missed due to the characters not sharing a language. While Candido and his wife certainly faced more than their share of problems and tragedies, I don't think the author was completely out of line with it because each tragedy made them more vulnerable to the next one. The conflicts in the book are not purely along racial lines, either, as the Mexican couple are harmed more than once by fellow Mexicans. I think the character of Delaney, while ultimately going over the top, does a good job of highlighting the difference between theory and life. He begins as a very strong liberal but very quickly, from the moment his car hits Candido, his more self-protective biases come out. At times I put the book down because it was more sadness than I wanted to read at that moment, but ultimately, the very last sentence of the book provides a glimpse of hope for the humanity of the two main characters.