The Tortilla Curtain (Penguin Books with Reading Guides)

T.C. Boyle’s tragicomic, award-winning novel about assimilation, immigration, and the price of the American dream

“A masterpiece of contemporary social satire . . . Turning the collective face of Mexican immigration into one ordinary human being, and walking many bruising miles in Candido’s cheap shoes, is Mr. Boyle’s gift to our collective conscience. But what makes The Tortilla Curtain good reading for any political stripe is that the author neither romanticizes the newcomers nor demonizes those who would pull up the ladder behind them.” —The Wall Street Journal

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.