HÃ©ctor Tobar

  ,
    ,The great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deservesâ€”a twenty-first century, West Coast ,Bonfire of the Vanities ,by the only writer qualified to capture the city in all its glory and complexity,With ,The Barbarian Nurseries, ,HÃ©ctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of Hollywood and deeper than camera-ready crime stories to reveal Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions. ,Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson householdâ€”one of three Mexican employees in a Spanish-style house with lovely views of the Pacific. She has been responsible strictly for the cooking and cleaning, but the recession has hit, and suddenly Araceli is the last Mexican standingâ€”unless you count Scott Torres, though youâ€™d never suspect he was half Mexican but for his last name and an old family photo with central L.A. in the background. The financial pressure is causing the kind of fights that even Araceli knows the children shouldnâ€™t hear, and then one morning, after a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty houseâ€”except for the two Torres-Thompson boys, little aliens sheâ€™s never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, and the only family member she knows of is SeÃ±or Torres, the subject of that old family photo. So she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew . . . ,With a precise eye for the telling detail and an unerring way with character, soaring brilliantly and seamlessly among a panorama of viewpoints, Tobar calls on all of his experienceâ€”as a novelist, a father, a journalist, a son of Guatemalan immigrants, and a native Angelenoâ€”to deliver a novel as broad, as essential, as alive as the city itself.,
  ,

Fiction,Contemporary,Literary Fiction,Novels,Family,Adult,Adult Fiction,Book Club,Literature,American,Audiobook
The Barbarian Nurseries