The morning after the fight, Maureen Torres-Thompson picked up the baby and left. She ran her beautiful home in a gated community just outside LA like the disciplined mid-level corporate executive she had once been. She often thought that the only thing she could say with certainty she wanted, was to bring goodness and beauty to the life of her family. And now Scott was telling her they were broke. If they could no longer afford a gardener, it had seemed sensible to replace the high-maintenance la petit rainforest with an architecturally interesting cactus garden. Inevitably that had required some initial outlay. They had a fight. Scott left too. When Scott and Maureen finally return home, the children have gone. Shocked at their own behaviour and terrified by what people will think of them they do what any right-minded middle-class parents would do. They lie. And accuse the maid. As a national media circus explodes over the 'abduction', carefully constructed lives begin to fall apart. In a city divided between a wealthy privileged class and a rising immigrant population every organization from the broken criminal justice system to the social services has a reason for wanting the story to end a certain way. A compelling portrait of our time, THE BARBARIAN NURSERIES questions how far we'll go to protect our ambitions, our liberty and our family.

BY THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AND PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE 33

'A book of extraordinary scope and power' Los Angeles Times

Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household, just outside Los Angeles.


One morning, after an argument between the parents which turned physical, she wakes to an empty house - except for the two sons she's never had to interact with before. Not knowing what else to do, she decides to track down their grandfather.

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, causing the Torres-Thompson's carefully constructed lives to begin to fall apart . . .

'As pacy and informative about the states of America as you would expect from a journalist who won a Pulitzer for coverage of the LA riots . . . Tobar is in total control of his material' Guardian

'A virtuosic and hard-hitting novel . . . Exposes disturbing and enlightening ironies about the perpetuation of both privilege and social disadvantage' TLS

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



Autorentext

Héctor Tobar



Zusammenfassung
BY THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AND PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE 33'A book of extraordinary scope and power' Los Angeles TimesAraceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household, just outside Los Angeles. One morning, after an argument between the parents which turned physical, she wakes to an empty house - except for the two sons she's never had to interact with before. Not knowing what else to do, she decides to track down their grandfather. 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, causing the Torres-Thompson's carefully constructed lives to begin to fall apart . . .'As pacy and informative about the states of America as you would expect from a journalist who won a Pulitzer for coverage of the LA riots . . . Tobar is in total control of his material' Guardian'A virtuosic and hard-hitting novel . . . Exposes disturbing and enlightening ironies about the perpetuation of both privilege and social disadvantage' TLSTobar'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
Titel
Barbarian Nurseries
Untertitel
A shocking and unforgettable novel about class differences in modern-day America
EAN
9781444726787
Format
E-Book (epub)
Veröffentlichung
13.10.2011
Digitaler Kopierschutz
Adobe-DRM
Dateigrösse
0.51 MB
Anzahl Seiten
432
Features
Unterstützte Lesegerätegruppen: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet