Tenth Anniversary Edition
Winner of the California Book Award for Fiction
A Los Angeles Times bestseller
Named a best book of the year by The New York Times Book Review,
Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Boston Globe
**With The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor 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.
**
Scott and Maureen Torres-Thompson have always relied on others to run
their Orange County home. But when bad investments crater their bank
account, it all comes down to Araceli, their somewhat prickly Mexican
maid. One night, an argument between the couple turns physical, and a
misunderstanding leaves the children in Araceli's care. Their parents
unreachable, she takes them to central Los Angeles in the hopes of
finding Scott's estranged Mexican father--an earnest quest that soon
becomes a colossal misadventure, with consequences that ripple through
every stratum of the sprawling city. Héctor Tobar's The Barbarian
Nurseries is a masterful tale of contemporary Los Angeles, a novel as
alive as the city itself.
