The Tortilla Curtain is about two men, Delaney and Candido, who are tied together after Delaney hits Candido with his car in the opening scene of the book. Things only get worse from there for Candido, who is an illegal immigrant with a pregnant wife, and Delaney's got his own troubles, including dogs which keep getting eaten, a ball-busting wife, and an inferiority complex which drives him toward hatred of all things migrant, especially Candido, whom he cites as the source of all his 1st-world problems.
This book would have been a 2/5, as 75% of the plot is just the unrelenting depression of foolish people in shitty situations that trend shittier out of control, but the quality of the prose saved it for me. Boyle deals deftly in the transitions between lyrical and blunt, and that for me was the strength of the book.
As far as weaknesses, I feel this story falls into the "literary" trap. Literary Fiction is so often marketed as "realistic," but I find more often than not that lit fic eschews true-to-life realism in favor of flashy, inescapable tragedy. That's fine for a 2 hour play, but over a 400 page book? It gets discouraging, especially with a book like this, which starts at a low where most real lives bottom out, and only gets worse from there.
A masterclass in empathy, but one that makes you regret taking the course.
