The Barbarian Nurseries

Aug 30, 2011 Jeanette rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, cultural-and-social-commentary, av, domestic-and-relationship-fiction

This lardful lump of language is heavy-handed and implausible. It took me nearly six weeks to finish, when it should have taken one to two weeks at most. Some days I could only read two or three pages. Not only is the story slow-moving and tedious, but the author's agenda is overpowering. Whenever he wants to be sure you get his point, he spells it out by putting it fully formed into the thoughts of one of the characters. I felt like I was constantly being bludgeoned with authorial intent.

The st...more

like 10 likes · see review

Oct 12, 2011 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Oh, this book made me so, so angry. I kept having to put it down & walk around a bit while deep breathing before I could continue. I'm glad I stuck with it, since it didn't turn out as bad for Araceli as I thought it would, and I am in love with an ambiguous ending any day of the week. But Maureen. Maureen. Come on now. You decide to take your baby on a getaway after your husband knocks you into the table, so you leave your sons with the nanny, Araceli (admittedly, she did think the husband...more Oh, this book made me so, so angry. I kept having to put it down & walk around a bit while deep breathing before I could continue. I'm glad I stuck with it, since it didn't turn out as bad for Araceli as I thought it would, and I am in love with an ambiguous ending any day of the week. But Maureen. Maureen. Come on now. You decide to take your baby on a getaway after your husband knocks you into the table, so you leave your sons with the nanny, Araceli (admittedly, she did think the husband was going to be there, too), and you don't take your cell phone so you can be reachable - like say, when you husband takes off as well & leaves the nanny alone with your kids. You stay away four days without making the slightest effort to find out how your children are doing, and when you return to find the kids missing you lie to the police & try to pin kidnapping on the nanny. While I understand her motivation & why she did it, I still can't fathom doing it myself and it smacks of crap parenting to me. Plus, her asking her husband if it was okay to spend thousands of dollars on a new garden while he's playing video games & clearly not paying attention drove me insane, too. He's not listening to you & you know that! Of course he's going to be angry when he gets the credit card bill! And why can't you just go out there & water the garden you already have?

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone while My Hollywood is still out there, because it does such a better job looking at the bizarre dynamic between parents and their nannies. There's too many odd tangents here about people in L.A. that are encountered by Araceli & the boys as they wander around, or who are inflammed by the "kidnapping" case when it gets blown way, way out of proportion. I am assuming that this novel's intent is to make us focus on the weird way illegal immigrants are ingrained in our society, but it just made me focus on what idiots some people's parents are, and the way that people pay too much attention to the stuff they have in their houses, or their landscaping, as though these are the things that make them good people, not whether or not they skip out for four days & leave their kids with the nanny! I'm still a little infuriated by the whole thing. The worst part is that in an act of attrition for their idiocy, Maureen & her husband (whose name is Scott and who is such a flat, tangential character he barely even rates a name) decide to move to a smaller house, which led me to scream at the pages, "What about the stupid $$$$ new garden you just put in that caused all these problems in the first place?!" (less)

like 5 likes · see review

Aug 20, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 3 of 5 stars

The upscale, LA gated community of the Torres-Thompson household has a breathtaking view of the ocean, and a lush tropical or semi-tropical garden maintained by Pepe the underpaid Mexicano gardener. Ironically, the elevation and climate of this suburban McMansion is really desert, so when the Torres-Thomspon household is forced to lay off Pepe due to personal financial problems, and Guadalupe, their underpaid Mexicana nanny, Scott Torres and Maureen Thomson are helpless with their tropical or se...more The upscale, LA gated community of the Torres-Thompson household has a breathtaking view of the ocean, and a lush tropical or semi-tropical garden maintained by Pepe the underpaid Mexicano gardener. Ironically, the elevation and climate of this suburban McMansion is really desert, so when the Torres-Thomspon household is forced to lay off Pepe due to personal financial problems, and Guadalupe, their underpaid Mexicana nanny, Scott Torres and Maureen Thomson are helpless with their tropical or semi-tropical garden, and it begins to curl up, dry out, and die.

The nanny duties without extra pay now fall on the housekeeper and cook, Araceli, their remaining employee, an undocumented Mexicana who was once an art student in Mexico City until economic problems forced her to seek solace in the US. The three offspring of the Torres-Thompsons are, in Maureen's opinion, the real homegrown exotic orchids that need to be nurtured and nourished with expensive toys, outstanding birthday parties, and private schools, as well as a limit to the gaming devices coveted by Scott Torres, a once big-time game software developer now working in a managerial capacity and watching his funds slip from his ever loosening grasp.

Maureen is a housewife in charge of their two inquisitive sons and a toddler, with a wallet full of overextended credit cards that she intends to use to ecologically balance her garden and fill it with ginormous cacti and succulents. Maureen defends this intervention (by a professional service) after her dying tropical or semi-tropical garden was ridiculed at her son's birthday party. She decides to correct that by planting "natural" flora, at an obscene $10,000.

There are many contrasts and literary allusions immediately felt by the reader that express dramatic and comedic irony, and a deep well of extended metaphors in this novel of identity, class, home, politics, greed, media agenda, ethnic bigotry, and hypocrisy in Southern California.

On the first page, Scott Torres, who Maureen once called "King of the 21st Century," is attempting to master the lawnmower that Pepe handled with such facility. This is analogous to Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, attempting to subjugate and leash a dachshund. McCoy's life as "Master of the Universe" has yet to be destroyed, but his inability to easily conquer a dog foreshadows with terrific nuance. In Tobar's story, Torres is already financially defeated as the novel opens, and his delayed triumph over the lawnmower is superbly demonstrated, especially as Araceli is secretly watching his bumbling attempts with grim satisfaction.

In just a few well-drawn sentences, native Guatemalan Tobar has hooked the reader with character definition and dimension. His repeated, sardonic use of "Torres-Thompson household" alone is sufficient to subtly inform the reader of the irony of contrasts and conspicuous class conceit. They are the textbook prosperous family--earnestly politically correct, yet as protective as monarchs, trying to straddle the fence between their adopted idealism of cultural "equality" and their actual lifestyles. The ambitious scope of this novel--to take the reader further and further into a culturally Hispanic LA in order to accent the Torres-Thompson duplicity, spotlight the city's phony pietism and sanctimony, and render redemption, is where it fails.

What happened? Tobar's authorial intrusion came on strong and early; his inconsistent style often drifted to telegraphing and expository writing, doing the thinking for the reader. Nuance was eclipsed by affected and heavy-handed manipulation, so that it stalled out by the middle of the book.

Despite Tobar's own native culture, which I expected to aid in providing the reader with an authentic reading experience, I was distanced early on. He lacked the vernacular and idiomatic honesty of The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He gave us an "invasive species" metaphor, like Diaz's mongoose, to play with, he gave us a dissembling family, and then he stole that novel away from us and started intruding with stereotypes and telecasts. There is a gritty, epic story in here, but Tobar invaded his narrative with forced entry, and trumpeted his themes too obtrusively. A few more drafts and adept authorial removal could restore this story to its opening brilliance. (less)

like 5 likes · see review

Jun 03, 2012 Louisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: big-kid, do-gooder, favorites, road-trippin, social-justice, svu-esque

The major feat of Tobar's epic, sprawling, hot-mess of a novel is its ability to capture, I think, what it means to be from Southern California--in all the myriad ways that can mean now.

I don't think I can recall a contemporary novelist who is as humane or as forgiving of some of his seemingly very unforgivable characters. There really is so much to hate here and yet just as one feels one's self getting suitably outraged on behalf of the good guy or gal that same guy or gal does something remark...more

like 3 likes · see review

Apr 20, 2013 Aban (Aby) rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found myself engrossed by "The Barbarian Nurseries", with its Orange County/Los Angeles setting and its exploration of the social and cultural issues arising from tensions between rich and poor and between Anglos and Latinos. The central figure in the novel is Araceli, a Mexican maid working for Scott and Maureen Torres-Thompson in their beautiful home in an exclusive gated community, out aside of Los Angeles. A reserved, somewhat grumpy, person she is non-the-less a meticulous housekeeper and...more I found myself engrossed by "The Barbarian Nurseries", with its Orange County/Los Angeles setting and its exploration of the social and cultural issues arising from tensions between rich and poor and between Anglos and Latinos. The central figure in the novel is Araceli, a Mexican maid working for Scott and Maureen Torres-Thompson in their beautiful home in an exclusive gated community, out aside of Los Angeles. A reserved, somewhat grumpy, person she is non-the-less a meticulous housekeeper and (although her employers do not realize it) it is she who keeps the household running smoothly. Scott and Maureen are experiencing financial difficulties and, after a major fight, both depart leaving their two boys alone in the house. (Each thinks the other has the boys.) Araceli, reluctantly, takes charge of the household but, when neither parent returns after a couple of days, she decides to take the boys to stay with their paternal grandfather in Los Angeles. Thus begins an adventure for the boys and an agonizing and futile search for Araceli which, when Scott and Maureen return home to find their maid and the boys gone, becomes a manhunt, ending with Araceli's arrest and trial.

I felt the author created a vivid picture of both the wealthy and the desperately poor side of Los Angeles (Hector Tobar lives and works as a journalist there). He explored the prejudices in both the Anglo and Latino communities. I really liked the way he developed his characters. Slowly we learn that, behind Araceli's stoic exterior, lies a youthful frustration at her inability to further her education and her artistic career. We see her humour and her naïveté and innocence. She is not perfect, neither are her employers. I was able to empathize with all three of them, though I deplored Maureen's willingness to scapegoat Araceli rather than face up to her own errors of action and judgement. My main criticism of the book lies with its ending which I felt was rather facile. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have read the book and would certainly recommend it to my friends.(less)

like · see review

Mar 14, 2013 JS Found rated it 2 of 5 stars

This novel by a Latino novelist and reporter won the California Book Award for Fiction. It was named a best book of the year by the august New York Times Book Review, by the LA Times, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Chronicle, according to the book's back cover. It is a provocative look at the illegal immigrant experience in California, where, as in most of the U.S., there is a need for domestics and low-wage workers. It covers race, class, politics, poverty, and an ethnography of the ci...more This novel by a Latino novelist and reporter won the California Book Award for Fiction. It was named a best book of the year by the august New York Times Book Review, by the LA Times, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Chronicle, according to the book's back cover. It is a provocative look at the illegal immigrant experience in California, where, as in most of the U.S., there is a need for domestics and low-wage workers. It covers race, class, politics, poverty, and an ethnography of the city of Los Angeles. And it is a conniption-inducing failure.

I don't know what the basis of this book was. I have the uncomfortable and terrible desire to wish it was based on a true story--only that would explain the string of idiotic characters and contrivances that no actual human being would make. You are familiar with this type of story. If you saw Babel. If you've read the novels of Andre Dubus III or Tom Wolfe. Or if you know Hegelian tragedy. Whatever literary and classical influences, this is tired, well-worn ground. And whatever the tradition, it is still very, very stupid.

If you don't want to know anything about the plot, stop reading now. I don't like to know anything about the books I read before reading them, so that I can have a fresh, unbiased and uninfluenced mind, but, as I reached the central story, the great prose and the fresh--to this reader--immigrant's tale gave way to frustration and anger. Because the book had lots of potential. It started of in the realist mode and went quietly satirical, melding Don Delillo with Balzac; a panoramic view of an Orange County suburban family and their help that visited each character's mind while providing ironic but observant details of their family, home, and lives. It seemed to be about general malaise and how dreams were eroded into disillusionment. There was sharp criticism of middle to upper class white American families and how strange American customs looked to foreigners. There was finally a look at the life of the foreign maid and how she did everything in the house but was not seen, was taken for granted, and gradually and without a rise in emolument given more and more responsibility.

So everything was going along nicely, anchored by the very detailed, specific but beautifully written prose. And then the main story hit and everything collapsed. So that you can judge for yourselves, I break my own rule of telling plot spoilers. Here is the fatal-for-this-book story: the erstwhile wealthy couple have to get rid of their Mexican gardener and also their Mexican nanny. So everything falls on the Mexican maid. The wife is embarrassed by the poor state of the garden, and racks up the credit card overhauling it. This leads to a big fight btwn husband and wife, and both, the next day, without knowledge of the other, decide to abandon their kids to the maid, without telling her, in order go off to relieve some stress. This turns into four days. Each thinks the other has the kids and is at home, not realizing that the maid is alone with them and the food is running out. She tries calling but the cell phones are dead. Seeing a picture of the kids' grandfather, and an address on the back where he might live, she takes them into L.A to drop them off and end this chore of taking care of them. When she can't find him and gets lost with the kids in a city she's never been in before, she stays over a day and night at some nice strangers' homes, not once thinking that the parents might be a tad worried when they get home and their kids are missing, and, oh, yeah, she didn't write a note. (But it has already been established that she is an educated young woman and has an imaginative inner life as she is a budding artist.)

The parents, not knowing what's going on, call the police, and of course, in stories like these, it becomes a media virus and snowballs, and pretty soon the maid is arrested by an anti-immigrant DA and put on trial, with the predictable cleaving of a city and state, as she becomes a bellwether of immigrant rights or nationalist anti-immigrant rage.

And we get the usual fervor and slice of society. Look at the politicians, media and lawyers using her for their own ends. Look at the common people, the rabble that are heavily and easily influenced by media, conservative or liberal. This has all been done before. But it's done and the situation is propagated and exacerbated by stupid people who are in a slightly more serious and less droll version of a Three's-Company-misunderstanding-plot. Whatever observations about race and class and the immigrant experience in America Tobar has is undermined by the incredulous nature of the story. You skip right by what Tobar wants to be the meat of the book--those observations--because you're repeatedly thinking, "Why can't a person here act like an adult?" and "Of course the situation will get compounded by people who merely need to talk to each other and behave like rational human beings." In short, this story is totally contrived to elicit blood lust and anger when no such emotions would exist if the characters didn't behave sensibly. It's cheap. It's the Walking Dead's stupid plots and people transplanted to SoCal and about a real, important, timely, subject. Here is cross-ethnic alliance at the stupidity of the characters. Those who hate pampered, privileged, upper class whites who think everything can be solved with money will have their biases stroked, and those racists who think that Mexicans are dumb and irresponsible will nod their heads at the stupid maid and have their ideas confirmed.

This a well-written bad novel. Shame because the subject could have used some real examination, some examination rooted in the real word and not a well-worn plot device only found in the movies. I don't know how Tobar conceived of his story. Did he come up with character first or situation or theme? If the latter, that can lead to a bad book. The characters have to be the rock everything else stand on--prose, structure, plot, themes. If they are not or if the plot or theme is the first thing the author thinks of and writes the characters to fit them, then they can contradict themselves and make stupid decisions to get where the writer really wants to go. Nothing wrong with writing about a hot-button issue; that's what art is supposed to do. But the characters and the situation have to be believable enough to get there--get the story-- organically and credibly. Otherwise, the book falls apart.(less)

like · see review

Feb 03, 2013 Brooke rated it 3 of 5 stars

It took me quite awhile to get into this book. Writing was good but a bit slow. It tells the story of Araceli, housekeeper to the Torres family of Orange County. She prides herself on keeping their mansion impeccable. The private school tuitions, household help, landscaping costs, etc are catching up with the Torres family so they let some of their help go. Mother Maureen is beginning to feel the "stress of it all" with only one employee remaining, the somewhat stern Araceli who does not really...more

like · see review

Jan 26, 2013 alysa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Definitely not my favorite book. I could relate to the mother on some level - trying to raise her children and keep up with the expectations of those around her. However, she missed the most essential thing in raising children - You have to be there for them and interact with them and their other parent if you want them to thrive in a healthy family. Poor Brandon doesn't understand the difference between reality and fiction and the younger boy only has his brother to look up to. I was irritated...more

like · see review

Oct 25, 2012 Louise rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-fiction

Story Description:

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd|September 20, 2011|Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-44340-709-0

Scott Torres is a thirty-something Mexican American with a beautiful, blonde wife, Maureen; a mansion outside L.A.; and a staff of servants to tend his lawn, clean house and care for the three Torres children. As the novel opens, all the servants have been let go save for Araceli, their maid. Scott has fallen on hard times after a failed investment, and to make ends meet he has been forced to cut c...more

like 1 like · see review

Aug 25, 2012 Florinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

The central plot of The Barbarian Nurseries involves the family of Scott Torres and Maureen Thompson, who bought their home in an exclusive Orange County gated community when the software company they launched was acquired several years earlier, enabling a new lifestyle maintained with the help of three Spanish-speaking domestic employees. But now the recession has come to their single-income household, and they’ve had to let the gardener and the nanny go, adding to the work of their live-in hou...more The central plot of The Barbarian Nurseries involves the family of Scott Torres and Maureen Thompson, who bought their home in an exclusive Orange County gated community when the software company they launched was acquired several years earlier, enabling a new lifestyle maintained with the help of three Spanish-speaking domestic employees. But now the recession has come to their single-income household, and they’ve had to let the gardener and the nanny go, adding to the work of their live-in housekeeper Araceli Ramirez--not that anyone discussed this with her. There’s not much discussion of anything in the Torres-Thompson home, really, but there are increasingly frequent arguments about money; the morning after one of those arguments, Araceli discovers that both Scott and Maureen have left the house--but their sons, 11-year-old Brandon and 8-year-old Kenan, are still at home. Two days and assorted miscommunications later, neither parent has returned, and Araceli is weary; she wasn’t hired to take care of children. The only extended-family member she knows about is Scott’s father, and the only clue she has to his whereabouts is an old photo taken years earlier in East Los Angeles--but Araceli’s people don’t move around much, so she has no reason to think he wouldn’t still be there, and she decides that the best course of action would be to deliver the boys to their grandfather until their parents return. And when the parents do return--separately, as they left--they’re distressed to find that both their sons and their maid are missing.

The Barbarian Nurseries is primarily a plot-driven novel, but much of the plot is underpinned by contemporary themes that have particular resonance in Southern California: socio-economic and class conflict, notably that involving recent Spanish-speaking immigrants, political and media opportunism arising from those conflicts, and exactly how “assimilated Latinos”--long-term or native-born residents who look “white” and whose only daily use of the Spanish language is their own last names--fit into the picture. A less weighty, but equally SoCal, theme concerns keeping up appearances--a lifestyle you really can’t afford, a persona and self-presentation that overrides genuine intimacy and connection.

By shifting perspectives between Maureen, Scott, Araceli, and various secondary characters, Tobar is able to explore a range of attitudes and experiences of modern life in and around Greater Los Angeles, as well as reflections on how it’s changed in recent decades. I found some of the perspectives quite insightful and enlightening. However, a trade-off of presenting such a varied cast of characters can be that development of individuals suffers, and I think that’s an issue here. I couldn’t sustain much sympathy for Scott and Maureen, and I felt that Maureen in particular was more of a “type” than an individual. That said, the novel hinges on Araceli, and I thought she was brought to life with complexity and humanity. I also enjoyed Brandon Torres-Thompson, the 11-year-old. He’s bright, bookish and imaginative, and has been sheltered to the degree that he seems to give fiction and fact equal weight as he encounters the world; I’ve known a few kids like him. (I’ve lived with a kid like him.)

The blurb at the head of the publisher’s page for The Barbarian Nurseries suggests that it is a “a twenty-first century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities--Los Angeles’ great panoramic social novel.” Sometimes that catalog copy is effective shorthand for what a book offers and sometimes it’s not, but in this case it’s not far off the mark. I think it could provoke some thoughtful and spirited discussion, particularly among Southern California readers and their book groups.(less)

like · see review

Jun 08, 2012 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Araceli is a Mexican maid for a wealthy young couple, Maureen and Scott who have three children. They live in a fancy upscale home in Orange County complete with a gardener and a caregiver for the children. But Scott's job takes a turn for the worse and he fires the gardener and caregiver leaving Araceli to take on more responsibilities. Maureen and Scott leave Araceli in charge of their two oldest children when they both leave the home for several days after an argument. Araceli is frantic when...more

like · see review

May 21, 2012 Sheri rated it 4 of 5 stars

When the economy tanks, and the nouveau riche of southern California have to economize, the Mexicano/a hired help are the first to go. "Winning" that lottery in the Thompson-Torres household is the housekeeper, Araceli, an undocumented alien who retains her job when the nanny Lupe and the gardener Pepe get fired. But it all goes to hell at that point, with pretty disastrous consequences for Araceli, her bosses Scott and Maureen, and the bosses' sons, Keenan and Brandon.

I really liked this book...more

like 1 like · see review

Feb 27, 2012 Annie rated it 5 of 5 stars

The complexity and the humor, that’s what I liked.
Each individual’s motivations, history, family, temperament were a fascinating interplay within the context of California/US immigration law and reality, racism, materialism and human striving.
Did the end surprise you too?
I had overwhelming feeling of dread in middle and had to go on hiatus for a few days. I couldn’t bear to read about Araceli crushed.
But she wasn’t crushed! Far from it, yet her freedom is only as long lived as the next Miga sto...more

like 2 likes · see review

Feb 27, 2012 Shauna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Incredible writing propels this story of financial folly, illegal immigrants, and mixed messages. Assuming that communication has occurred is what makes us all guilty.

Favorite quotes:
"Olivia Garza could now feel this home and see it properly. And what she saw was a mother whose only crime was trying too hard.
To her practiced eye these boys communicated both intellectual curiosity and a touch of the loneliness that was entirely common in well-off families."

“ ‘My words and my true story will no...more

like · see review

Feb 09, 2012 Polly rated it 4 of 5 stars

A story about how things can go very wrong without anyone understanding quite why. A yuppie couple in SoCal start to have financial troubles. They have 3 Hispanic workers: a gardener, a nanny, and a maid/cook. They decide to let the gardener and nanny go. Areceli, the maid and cook, now has to add child care duties to her workload. The husband, Scott Torres (well, technically Torres-Thompson) decides he'll take care of the yard. Really, how hard can that be? Needless to say, he screws up. His wi...more

like · see review

Jan 29, 2012 christa rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Torres-Thompson family of Southern California has crested flush financial times is now dipping into a place where flashing plastic can have humiliating results. Scott, a programmer, and Maureen, a stay-at-home mom, have laid off 66 percent of their staff, both the nanny and the gardener, and have beefed up the duties of the Mexican housekeeper Araceli.

Tensions are high at the start of Hector Tobar’s novel “The Barbarian Nurseries.” Scott Torres is hiding out, face deep in video games and an...more The Torres-Thompson family of Southern California has crested flush financial times is now dipping into a place where flashing plastic can have humiliating results. Scott, a programmer, and Maureen, a stay-at-home mom, have laid off 66 percent of their staff, both the nanny and the gardener, and have beefed up the duties of the Mexican housekeeper Araceli.

Tensions are high at the start of Hector Tobar’s novel “The Barbarian Nurseries.” Scott Torres is hiding out, face deep in video games and an inner-office flirtation. Maureen Thompson’s inner control freak is struggling to keep it together in the face of the home’s aesthetic decay. Her answer is to rip out the faux rain forest in the backyard and replace it with a faux desert, which will be a major blow to the family checkbook, but ultimately require less upkeep. This is a last straw for Scott, who sees the bill and loses his shit, unleashing an unprecedented instance of domestic violence that ends with a broken coffee table and the couple retreating to separate corners of the house.

Early the next morning Maureen gets off the floor of the baby’s bedroom, raids the family earthquake fund, and steals away for a weekend at the spa with her infant daughter. Scott is gone when she leaves and she assumes he has gone to work. Really he has gone to the apartment of a young admiring co-worker with plans for his own weekend break from cacti and burning bushes. Araceli wakes to find an 8-year-old boy and 11-year-old boy alone in the house, which comes to weigh on her more and more as time passes without any word from either parent.

A few days pass and Araceli, who is no Mary Poppins, has called all the emergency contacts and is stuck. She worries that if she calls the police, the boys will be sent to a foster home. So she sets out to find their estranged grandfather, a man seen in a 30-year-old family photograph standing in front of a home in Los Angeles. They leave the gated community, board a bus, and make for Union Station.

What follows is Tobar’s love story to Los Angeles, where he is a writer for the Los Angeles Times IRL. There are descriptive passages of neighborhoods and transit stations and landmarks along the route. Every person the trio encounters is given a voice, as the story is written from inside the head of every character, sometimes the perspective shifting mid-paragraph. The group finds kindness in Scott Torres’s old neighborhood, where a woman lives in a modest home and has grudgingly taken in an orphan, but gives them a corner of floor for the night. They head to another neighborhood and shack up with a city councilor, first participating in a grand July 4 party complete with roasted pig and fireworks.

When Scott and Maureen swallow their pride and return to their empty home, chaos ensues. There is no note, no kids. They blame each other, then they blame Araceli. They give an abbreviated and polished story to the police and become the face of tragedy in the local news: A rich white couple whose Mexican housekeeper has made off with their children.

This book needles its way to nerve endings. Tobar is a master manipulator with his handful of characters who are such awful assholes, content to let someone else sweat it out in a jail cell instead of owning up to their own selfishness and mistakes, to sully the idea that the Torres-Thompsons are anything less than a perfect family. If you’ve never wanted to push a fist straight into the heart of the book, now is your chance. The story also points at the nature of media to latch on to a sexy story and the way that media consumers will latch on to an issue and choose sides, make signs, create petitions without knowing the details.

Some of the scenes have a bit of “Three’s Company”-ness to them, with important phone calls happening just as Araceli leaves a room, and Scott Torres visiting his old neighborhood the same day that his kids and housekeeper ends up there.

It’s a tough book to set aside, as you wait to see whether there will be justice. I liked it. It was a thinker and it gave me a character-rage cardio workout. Fun Fact: As I was reading I had a dream in Spanish. A few chapters later, Maureen Thompson had a dream in Spanish and described it in a way that was similar to my own dream. So that happened. (less)

like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Katrina rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Torres-Thompsons live in an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Scott Torres’ software executive job has enabled him to provide his wife with a view of the Pacific and his boys with the kind of toys that inspire the maid to name their bedroom The Room of a Thousand Wonders. With the help of a gardener, a nanny and a maid, Maureen is able to teach art as a volunteer at their sons’ private school and stay home the rest of the time with her three children. When Scott loses mo...more The Torres-Thompsons live in an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Scott Torres’ software executive job has enabled him to provide his wife with a view of the Pacific and his boys with the kind of toys that inspire the maid to name their bedroom The Room of a Thousand Wonders. With the help of a gardener, a nanny and a maid, Maureen is able to teach art as a volunteer at their sons’ private school and stay home the rest of the time with her three children. When Scott loses money in the stock market, however, he’s forced to let go of the gardener and the nanny, leaving the cooking, cleaning, and baby-sitting to Araceli, the tall, dour-faced Mexican maid who was “more likely to ignore you when you said hello in the morning or to turn down her eyes in disapproval if you made a suggestion.”

Disagreements over money ensue and when the last argument wreaks havoc on the marriage, the two go their separate ways to lick their wounds: Scott to a coworker’s and Maureen to a spa with only her young daughter in tow. Both parents neglect to inform Araceli of their plans or their whereabouts and soon she feels compelled to take the boys into LA to search for the boys’ paternal grandfather, a decision which will impact her standing not only in the household, but also in the country.

“The Barbarian Nurseries” offers a hilarious look at our solipsistic culture and a poignant reminder of the Mexican immigrants who live among us, often invisible, taken for granted, and ultimately powerless. Tobar uses the omniscient point of view effortlessly, allowing the reader to see Araceli, a surprising, larger than life character, through the eyes of a multitude of people, people who perceive Araceli either as a victim or a criminal depending on their particular biases and agendas.

This novel is a comment on immigration in today’s volatile socioeconomic environment, a comment on our relentless desire as a nation to accumulate and consume more and more, and a comment on the pliable circus our media has become. Tobar’s love for his characters is obvious and none is without culpability of some degree. Intelligent, provocative, this book is loads of fun to read, and though the reader will be confronted with some unflattering truths, he can still come away from the experience entirely hopeful about humanity.

*Review first published in The Pilot

(less)

like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: immigrant-experience

Dickens writes about East L.A. and the richest parts of Orange County.

Here’s the storyline: Scott and Maureen did well enough in the dot-com world that they could afford three employees to take care of their children and mansion. But things are starting to fray. The gardener and nanny are let go. A fight about money goes too far. The next morning, each parent decides to take a time out for a day or two. Each one thinks the other one is home with their two boys.

But only Araceli, the cook, is wit...more

like 1 like · see review

Jan 01, 2012 Felice rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have to compare The Barbarian Nurseries to The Help. Both novels are about the inequities between the moneyed and their domestic servants and shine a light on the plight of those the majority opts to keep voiceless in society. And. I'll be honest I am not a big fan of the novel The Help.

We all know the story that The Help tells correct? Ok then moving on to The Barbarian Nurseries by HéctorTobar. In this contemporary novel the Torres-Thompson family of Los Angeles and their illegal Mexican hou...more I have to compare The Barbarian Nurseries to The Help. Both novels are about the inequities between the moneyed and their domestic servants and shine a light on the plight of those the majority opts to keep voiceless in society. And. I'll be honest I am not a big fan of the novel The Help.

We all know the story that The Help tells correct? Ok then moving on to The Barbarian Nurseries by HéctorTobar. In this contemporary novel the Torres-Thompson family of Los Angeles and their illegal Mexican housekeeper, Araceli become the center of a media storm. Maureen and Scott Torres-Thompson and their three young children are currently on a downwardly mobile, downsizing spree after comfortable affluence. They have excised the gardener and the nanny and now only have their housekeeper as their badge of success.

When the troubles in their marriage accelerate into an argument that sends Maureen through a glass coffee table she flees with the baby. In the meantime Scott needs his break and he goes off to make himself feel better with another woman. Neither Maureen nor Scott has bothered to tell Araceli that she is now alone and in charge of the two young boys.

Having no instructions from their parents and indeed not knowing where Maureen and Scott are and when they will be back, Araceli decides to bring the boys to their Grandfather’s home in a different part of L.A. This is no simple over the river and through the woods trip to Grandfather’s house. Araceli has only a vague idea of how to get where she feels compelled to bring the boys for their own wellbeing. Their journey is a trip through a reality that verses the economically and socially cloistered lives of the status seeking Torres-Thompsons.

Tobar takes this framework and escalates the plot twists into an all too believable frenzy. The parents and the missing maid with children in tow are the stuff that media circuses feed off of. Tobar spares no character, no social concern, no popular theory his inventive, warts and all scrutiny in this mesmerizing novel.

So? The Help and The Barbarian Nurseries? They both have an important message to impart about the shamefully real circumstances of oppressed people in a free, wealthy nation and are written by talented storytellers. However The Help is ultimately a feel good victory of the morally worthy underdog story whereas The Barbarian Nurseries is a more honest and therefore more scathing novel that doesn’t allow the reader the safety of either distance or deniability. A+. (less)

like 3 likes · see review

Dec 09, 2011 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

A young couple in Orange County, CA with a staff of immigrants finds themselves with strained finances and reduce their domestic help to a lone young woman, who is an illegal immigrant from Mexico. The couple has a big fight and both leave the home, not realizing their partner has also taken flight. Left behind are their two young sons and Araceli, the maid. When she realizes that the parents are gone and not answering their cell phones, her biggest fear is that the boys will be placed in foster...more

like 1 like · see review

Nov 29, 2011 Mom rated it 2 of 5 stars

This seemed like it would be a terrific novel, and had great reviews -- but to me was quite disappointing. In fact, I ended up skimming the last half of the book, and constantly wondered if I should even waste my time with it at all.

The story is of a Mexican (illegal) immigrant maid in Southern California and the wealthy white family she works for. When parents have a fight and disappear without warning, the maid is left to care for their two boys... and when they don't return in a few days, she...more

like · see review

Nov 05, 2011 Cynthia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2011

Is it a river or a big ditch?

I loved this book. Tobar creates an accurate account of how people from different walks of life interact in Los Angeles and Orange County. I’ve lived here for over 30 years and his insights were startling but at the same time felt like home truths. Araceli Ramirez is an educated woman from Mexico City. She’s also in the States illegally and the only job she’s been able to get is as a housekeeper to an outwardly prosperous Irvine couple with two young boys, ages 9 and...more Is it a river or a big ditch?

I loved this book. Tobar creates an accurate account of how people from different walks of life interact in Los Angeles and Orange County. I’ve lived here for over 30 years and his insights were startling but at the same time felt like home truths. Araceli Ramirez is an educated woman from Mexico City. She’s also in the States illegally and the only job she’s been able to get is as a housekeeper to an outwardly prosperous Irvine couple with two young boys, ages 9 and 11, and an infant daughter. With the downward trend in the economy this affluent couple let their gardener and nanny go leaving Araceli ‘the last Mexican standing’. Araceli is now not just overworked but lonely in an alien household. There’s worse to come though. The couple have an argument that turns physical and Maureen, the wife, takes her daughter and escapes to a spa without telling anyone. Her husband Scott feels ashamed of pushing his wife. He can’t face her or his family or the maid who witnessed his outburst so he also stays away from home for a few days. Araceli’s alone with her two precocious charges and after two days of abandonment and no word from either of the boy’s parents she sets off to find their paternal grandfather Juan Torres. Their odyssey begins. The eldest boy who’s read lot’s of science fiction and adventure stories sees their train and bus rides as an extension of these tales. Here Tobar slips in some South American magical realism which is delightful. To the boy the homeless living near the train tracks are refugees from mythic wars with their scars, torn clothing and tents with hearth fires. There’s even a cement ditch that’s said to be the Los Angeles river! Truth and fiction entwine in a funny/sad way. Then things turn serious.

Did Araceli, the evil alien, kidnap the boys or rescue them? This plays out on the news and morphs into a standoff between Hispanics and Anglos. Tobar shows the best and the worst of Los Angeles and all her people and he does it with wonderful precision and without vilifying any group. He highlights what’s good and bad in the different cultures against the backdrop of an economy that’s not kind to anyone. Particularly interesting to me was how each person defines their Americaness. Third generation Mexican Americans see their place in our culture differently than first generation immigrants. Then there are the Anglo’s living in or near integrated neighborhoods. In such places the kids begin to embrace one another’s cultures often flipping the importance of Anglo tradition in favor of Hispanic heritage. The white kids immerse themselves in the dominant Hispanic culture they’re living in. Sadly some of their parents react to this by becoming staunchly racist. They’re afraid of losing themselves and whatever power they perceive they have or had. I know this all sounds ponderously serious and it is but Tobar also makes it fun as well revelatory.
(less)

like 7 likes · see review

Nov 03, 2011 Lynn rated it 4 of 5 stars

wonderful story! Set in LA, its characters are Araceli, a Mexican maid and illegal immigrant; and the family she lives with (mom, dad, 2 sons and a young daughter). When the family starts to fall on hard times, they can't cope very well. This is all observed by Araceli (they probably think she doesn't know what's going on, but she is one smart cookie!)

When the couple have a violent fight, Araceli witnesses it. The next day, both husband and wife decide to leave for a while to "teach my spouse a...more

like · see review

Oct 19, 2011 Kkraemer rated it 5 of 5 stars

For the first time in awhile, I had to fight myself to do anything but read this book. An Orange County family, with a dad who works hard and a mom who is trying to be the best mom she can possibly be, has an incident that results in their two sons being left with the housekeeper/cook for 4 days. She panics and tries to take them to their grandfather, but doesn't realize that he no longer lives at the address she has. The parents panic (where did she take them? why? will she smuggle them to Mexi...more

like 1 like · see review

Sep 26, 2011 Biblibio rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century, fiction

The Barbarian Nurseries takes a few pages getting used to, but once the reader falls into the multiple third-person POV writing style, the book is wonderful - very well written, telling an interesting and relevant story, and displaying the lives of a series of absolutely believable characters. Héctor Tobar succeeds in creating some marvelously realistic and sympathetic characters, as well as writing one of the best child characters I've encountered in an adult-geared book in a long time.

The Barb...more

like 1 like · see review

Apr 16, 2012 Lisa Lieberman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sunday I have the New York Times delivered, and I usually spend my reading time plowing through it, although there are always a few sections I don't get to -- Sunday is also housecleaning day. This week I ignored the paper because I was deep into The Barbarian Nurseries, and I didn't get to the bathrooms. It's been ages since I've been so caught up in a novel! But while the story kept me reading, I can't say that any of the characters stayed with me. Most were caricatures, illustrative of some "...more

like · see review

Feb 28, 2012 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, contemporary-fiction, social-commentary

This is one of the most page-turning works of “literary fiction” I’ve ever read. It’s been pitched as a modern-day, Southern California version of The Help. I didn’t see the connection other than, you know, the help. This is far superior and a must-read for anyone who lives in this area. I think beyond that, too, but I can’t say for sure if this resonated for me more because I live and grew up in San Diego.

There’s so much going on that I can’t really address all of it in my review. I loved the...more

like · see review

Apr 23, 2013 Shawn Thrasher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Who are the barbarians in this 21st century tale of immigration, class, economics, politics and media manipulation? What you think may depend on which side of the socio-economic fence you sit, but Tobar wants us to dig deeper and think about what kind of country we are creating right now. The American nursery is nourishing and growing barbarians of all shapes and sizes, of all flavors and political bents, many of whom make appearances in this book. This looks like a simple tale, with a clear cut...more

like · see review

Aug 15, 2011 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Imagine a Tom Wolfe – or perhaps a T.C. Boyle or Don DeLillo – novel without some of the more tempered nuances. The Barbarian Nurseries is a social novel, focusing largely on the schisms between the wealthy and the immigrant population in Southern California and it’s good – at times, really good – before dissolving into a disappointing ending.

Scott Torres is a programmer, a Mexican American with the emphasis on the American, who has fulfilled the American dream: he lives with his lovely blond wi...more Imagine a Tom Wolfe – or perhaps a T.C. Boyle or Don DeLillo – novel without some of the more tempered nuances. The Barbarian Nurseries is a social novel, focusing largely on the schisms between the wealthy and the immigrant population in Southern California and it’s good – at times, really good – before dissolving into a disappointing ending.

Scott Torres is a programmer, a Mexican American with the emphasis on the American, who has fulfilled the American dream: he lives with his lovely blond wife Maureen Thompson-, his two sensitive and precocious young sons Brandon and Keenan and his baby daughter Samantha in wealthy gated L.A. community he can ill-afford. The Spanish-style house – Paseo Linda Bonita, a redundancy – is an immediate clue that this is not a community that is primed to understand those who toil in its households.

After falling on hard times, he dismisses all the servants go with one exception: Araceli, his illegal Mexican maid. One night, Scott and Maureen get into a particularly vicious fight about Maureen’s plan to replace the “petite forest” tropical garden with a very pricey desert landscape. Each separately decides to take a little break from home, leaving the two boys with Araceli. Unwilling and ill-equipped to handle her two charges, Araceli takes off on an ill-advised adventure to downtown Los Angeles, where she hopes to deposit the boys with their grandfather. When the parents return home four days later (each thinking the other is already there) they reach the absurd conclusion that Araceli has absconded with their sons and the result is the predictable media circus.

Hector Tobar is at heart, a journalist, and his writing reflects his careful journalist’s eye for detail. That is both the good news and the bad news. On one hand, we – as readers – receive full details on each scene, straight to the freshly dusted living rooms, tautly made beds, and photographs form places south with KODAK imprinted anachronistically on the back. On the other hand, all the work is done for us: Tobar tells us what we are viewing and how we should relate to it, not empowering us to come to our own conclusions.

Yet, for about three-quarters on the book, I was swept away with the contrasting worlds, the isolation of those who live affluent lifestyles in gated communities versus those who exist in a “shadow world”. Araceli is portrayed as the strange one, the Mexicana they couldn’t comprehend, but it would fall to her to bring the Torres-Thompson household by restoring the broken routines…” There are truths that Tobar reveals, such as when Arceli divulges the cost of the boys’ private school to her aspirational friends, which “strips them of some of their own moderately elevated sense of accomplishment by revealing just how small their achievements were relative to true American success and affluence.”

The two distinct camps – those who live in gleaming white homes in a neighborhood most often described with the adjectives “exclusive, “ “hillside,” and “gated,” – and those who they know only in the most superficial manner, are very well portrayed.

Where Tobar falls is in the last quarter of the novel, where the novel becomes obvious and heavy-handed. At one point, when Maureen meets the aggressive prosecutor, she reflects, “This man is telling me what to feel as much as he’s telling me what to think.” I felt the same way about the author. The camps were too finely drawn – the rich and irresponsible parents, the befuddled but blameless Mexican maid. The book becomes more pedestrian and predictable, losing some of its magic.

My conclusion: this is a good book that could easily have been a great book. Tobar does capture the complexity of one of our most unique cities – as well as the biases and assumptions that may end up toppling us. For that alone, the book is well worth the read.

(less)

like 2 likes · see review

Dec 23, 2011 Jean rated it 5 of 5 stars

I heard about this book on NPR and lucked out when it was on the new book shelf at Gordon Cooper. I couldn't put this book down. A wealthy southern California family falls on tough financial times and has to let the gardener and nanny go. The housekeeper/cook takes on more responsibility and finds herself the sole provider for two of the children after the parents fight, each taking flight thinking the other has charge of the household. Although the pretext sounds simple and trite, the story is...more

like · see review

title link	preview: The Barbarian Nurseries
avg rating	preview: The Barbarian Nurseries Goodreads rating: 3.62 (1249 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10898140-the-barbarian-nurseries?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348953874l/10898140.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10898140-the-barbarian-nurseries?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Barbarian Nurseries by Héctor Tobar[/url]

The Barbarian Nurseries

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (13)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Héctor Tobar

Books by Héctor Tobar

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About The Barbarian Nur...