The Tortilla Curtain

This novel examines America's guerrilla war between the haves and have-nots with a zing unequalled since The Bonfire of the Vanities ... rock'n'roll, full of exciting, vivid American landscapes, utopian, manic * Observer *
If Dickens were alive today he would be writing this sort of book -- Rosie Boycott * The Times, Books of the Year *
A harrowing, even horrific, tale of an immigrant couple's venture into California, and the shockingly brutal reception they receive ... a remarkable feat of imaginative empathy * Daily Telegraph *
Thrilling ... it's the same set up as Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities but Boyle immediately enlivens it * Independent on Sunday *
Stirring ... The Tortilla Curtain confirms Boyle's reputation as a novelist of exuberance and invention ... It also adds to his fictional range an open-hearted compassion for those whom society fears and reviles * New York Times Book Review *
A bold, strange novel ... a hectic satire on LA liberalism and real estate - Tom Wolfe meets Steinbeck * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *
Irresistible ... Boyle is a gifted and empathic satirist, the finest craftsman masked as a pop-literary author current American fiction has -- Bret Easton Ellis * Vogue *
Lays on the line of our national cult of hypocrisy. Comically and painfully he details the smug wastefulness of the haves and the vile misery of the have-nots -- Barbara Kingsolver
A powerful novel ... One of the best books I've read this year * Marie Claire *
What makes Boyle's book so good is not only its juggernaut plot, but also the author's keen eye for satire ... He has achieved that rarest of literary doubles - creating a message novel that is also a thundering good read * Esquire *
There isn't a contemporary American writer who can top Boyle's vivid prose and ironic style * Newsweek *
Relentless ... Boyle is a great stylist, capable of wild and imaginative feats of language and diversion, using irony and humour in a way that suggests nothing is capable of surviving his coruscating wit * Glasgow Herald *
A 1990s West Coast counterpart to The Bonfire of the Vanities, and certainly as inclusive in its treatment of the problems of Los Angeles as Tom Wolfe was of New York -- Paul Gambaccini * The Times, Books of the Year *
Succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel ... A book to appreciate as we peer at the faces of strangers outside our windows, and wall ourselves in * Boston Globe *