The Barbarian Nurseries: A shocking and unforgettable novel about class differences in modern-day America

Description

Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household, just outside Los Angeles. One morning, she wakes to an empty house - except for the two sons, little aliens she's never had to interact with before. Not knowing what else to do, she decides to track down their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew . . . When Scott and Maureen return to find the children gone, they do what any right-minded middle class parents would: they panic. Caught in a spiral of guilt, they say things that aren't quite true - and when Araceli is accused of abduction, a national media circus explodes and carefully constructed lives begin to fall apart. THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES is a compelling portrait of our time, which questions how far we will go to protect our ambitions, our liberty and our family.

H ctor Tobar is the former Buenos Aires and Mexico City Bureau Chief for the LA Times and shared a Pulitzer for the paper's coverage of the 1992 riots.

A book of extraordinary scope and extraordinary power. - L A Times Hector Tobar's THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES is a virtuosic and hard-hitting novel about social schism in Southern California. He combines a broad and bitter social vision with exuberant attention to details. Tobar exposes disturbing and enlightening ironies about the perpetuation of both privilege and social disadvantage. - TLS Avoiding the usual cliches, Tobar portrays his characters inner lives in nuanced detail . . . Tobar's hard-hitting novel drills deep into LA's hidden social and racial strata, and explores what happens when these carefully constructed lives implode. - Independent Tobar's second novel energetically explores America's hidden seam of racial discord . . . His take on southern California's complex social and ethnic strata is the strongest element of THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES . . . Not surprisingly he also displays an insider's knowledge of the media. - Guardian This is Araceli's story, and THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES is a novel that is entirely dependent on our relationship with her. Mercifully, she makes the journey worth our while. Referred to as "Madame Weirdness" by her employers, she is as inscrutable in the workplace as she is fiery out of it. As hypnotic as she is observant and as sympathetic as she is frosty, she is a diamond of a character. - Independent on Sunday The scope and cracking pace of Bonfire of the Vanities - Bookseller This book is beautifully written . . . it provides a fascinating portrait of mutual misunderstanding, of the life led by California's unprotected underclass, and of the American citizens who are wholly dependent on the illegal immigrants who service them. - Literary Review The predicament of the recession-hit middle classes as they hastily rearrange their priorities has provided a rich seam for fiction writers in recent years, and Pulitzer-winning journalist Tobar's latest is a fine example of the genre. - Daily Mail