The Barbarian Nurseries

By: Héctor Tobar

Narrated by: Frankie J. Alvarez

Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deserves—a 21st-century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities by the only writer qualified to capture the city in all its glory and complexity.

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.

Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household—one of three Mexican employees in a Spanish-style house with lovely views of the Pacific. She has been responsible strictly for the cooking and cleaning, but the recession has hit, and suddenly Araceli is the last Mexican standing—unless you count Scott Torres, though you’d never suspect he was half Mexican but for his last name and an old family photo with central LA in the background. The financial pressure is causing the kind of fights that even Araceli knows the children shouldn’t hear, and then one morning, after a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty house—except for the two Torres-Thompson boys, little aliens she’s never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, and the only family member she knows of is Señor Torres, the subject of that old family photo. So she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. It will be an adventure, she tells the boys. If she only knew.

With a precise eye for the telling detail and an unerring way with character, soaring brilliantly and seamlessly among a panorama of viewpoints, Tobar calls on all of his experience—as a novelist, a father, a journalist, a son of Guatemalan immigrants, and a native Angeleno—to deliver a novel as broad, as essential, as alive as the city itself.

©2011 Héctor Tobar (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“ Los Angeles Times journalist Tobar’s second novel is brimming with interwoven stories that form a vibrant portrait of his hometown of Los Angeles…The result is a marvelous pastiche of social commentary ensconced in a family domestic drama.” ( Booklist, starred review)

Good storyline, great performance

But the execution was a little too drawn out. If you don't enjoy a good human story that isn't all tied up and spelled out at the end, not for you.

However, if you like slices of life like pie, flaky tart meaty or sweet give it a shot. I found it worth the credit if a little plodding.

Lengthy, but extremely well-told story! Loved it!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. I actually think this is a very good book for a Chicano Studies course because it's extremely realistic. Like another reviewer mentioned here, it talks about significant themes such as immigration, class/labor, race/ethnicity, and life of Latinos in California. Being from Los Angeles myself, I think the author tells an accurate story that describes all of these important themes. I love how descriptive he is of each character and their background. That's why the book is so lengthy, but I think it actually makes you appreciate the story that much more because of this. The narrator is excellent and does a good job with characters' voices--one of the best I've heard on here. I wish all audible books had a great narrator like Alvarez. I really enjoyed this book and appreciate the insight it has to offer to readers/listeners.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the small truths unravel in the story, you can't help but to find the humor in it and smile/laugh at yourself.

Any additional comments?

I really wanted the protagonist (the live-in housekeeper, Araceli) to confront her employers. Sorry, if this was giving too much away, but I was seriously just waiting for that to happen in order for me to be satisfied with her justice.

Riveting Book--fantastic story!

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Barbarian Nurseries?

I loved the moments when Maureen, Scott and Araceli can see the mistakes they have made and instead of becoming more intractable and entrenched in their personal narrative, grow in understanding.

What about Frankie J. Alvarez’s performance did you like?

He has a fresh voice that is not overwrought or overly dramatic. Sometimes the narrator can take away from the book by being too obviously. Frankie let the story be the star, while portraying the thoughts and insights of each of the characters.

If you could take any character from The Barbarian Nurseries out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Maureen. She was like a million women I know and wouldn't necessarily warm to. I find her self-containment and love for perfection exhausting and thought she was the most interesting character.

A modern classic for 21st century Los Angeles

Let me be bold here: I think this book deserves to be a modern classic.

Not because it's the greatest book I've ever read. I liked it a lot, but it falls short of true greatness.

I am, however, comparing it to a lot of other classics I've read in the past few years, and in particular, the great melodramatic social commentaries like Bleak House, Mansfield Park, Middlemarch, North and South, Can You Forgive Her?, The Age of Innocence and so on.

Note that while I liked most of those books, I didn't love them. And I'm not necessarily comparing Héctor Tobar with the likes of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen.

But he does exactly what Dickens and Austen and Trollope and Eliot, et al did — in telling a story about characters caught in a particular time and place in rather contrived situations, he tells us about that milieu. And by telling a good story with vibrant and detailed characters, he makes the story interesting.

The milieu here is 21st century Los Angeles. Like most of the above-mentioned social commentarians, Tobar centers the story in a well-to-do household, that of Scott Torres and Maureen Torres-Thompson.

There's a wealth of details just in their names. Scott is a computer geek paper millionaire working at a start-up. He's all but abandoned the Mexican half of his heritage, including his Mexican father who was banned from his household by his wife for making what she considered to be a racially insensitive remark. Maureen is the very model of a nice progressive white lady who thinks racism and sexism and other isms are just ever so awful, while enjoying her stay-at-home mom status with floors washed, toilets scrubbed, meals cooked, and lawns gardened by underpaid Mexicans.

They both are and are not sympathetic people. Scott and Maureen really are pretty ordinary upper-middle class Californians with major materialistic blindness. Scott is utterly emasculated, Maureen is utterly emasculating, without being deliberately cruel. When she goes out and orders an expensive landscaping job, just as Scott has let go all but one of their Mexican help because the recession has devastated their savings and his company is struggling, it precipitates a conflict that leads to the second half of the novel.

Araceli Ramirez is the Torres-Thompsons' cook/housekeeper. She gets paid $250/week plus room and board. Nannying and babysitting is emphatically not part of her job - she doesn't even like kids. But when a series of ill-timed miscommunications lead Scott and Maureen both to leave the house for several days, each believing that their two boys are with the other one, Araceli is stuck with them.

The specific circumstances that cause Scott and Maureen to be unaware that they left their kids with the housekeeper for four days, and that cause Araceli to decide that she needs to take them across L.A. to their grandfather's house, are a bit contrived, a comedy of errors engineered to be convenient to the plot. But once they get underway, it's an interesting journey, because Araceli is the real main character.

She is not a "heroine." She's not a "spunky protagonist." And she's certainly not a nice motherly Latina guardian angel. She's a serious, responsible, hard-working woman who has learned to live with bitterness and lost opportunities. To her employers, she's just the unsmiling housekeeper they dubbed "Ms. Weirdness." In fact, Araceli is an astute observer of human nature who only refrains from making sharp comments because her English isn't very good. She's a former art student who had to leave her university in Mexico City, and now here she is trying to keep these sensitive, imaginative gringa boys out of trouble.

Their adventure turns into an even more farcical comedy of errors involving the police, politicians, celebrities, political activists and race-baiters, with Araceli caught in a media firestorm.

Is there a profound message in this book? Not really. The Barbarian Nurseries doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. America assimilates, rich people tend to be privileged and entitled, rich liberals tend to think very highly of their never-tested principles, no one actually wants to get rid of illegal immigrants except a few politicized useful fools, and just because someone doesn't speak your language doesn't mean they aren't thinking thoughts.

But it's the situation and the characters that make this book. What did Dickens or Trollope ever tell us that we didn't already know? And no one who appreciates the old classics should criticize Héctor Tobar's occasional tilt towards absurdity.

This novel of modern culture and racial friction in Los Angeles doesn't get 5 stars because it didn't have the literary brilliance to make it one of my faves. I think what it was most missing, for me, was humor. There were times when it was almost a satire, but not quite. But still, definitely a recommended read.

Brick to the Head

The Barbarian Nurseries is a story of Aricele, an undocumented Mexican maid, who one day wakes to find herself alone with the two young sons of her employers, Scott and Maureen. After days pass and neither of the parents has returned, Aricele sets out across LA with the boys in an attempt to find their grandfather. But things go terribly wrong, and soon the rather hum drum story of miscommunication between herself and the parents is blown out of proportion into a full-blown media and political circus.

The story is very ambitious, serving as a commentary on such diverse and major issues as immigration reform, class and wealth, parenting, journalistic integrity, political agendas, and the sensationalist appetite of the American public. In other words, this book bit off far more than it could chew. The result is a story which lacks nuance, instead hitting the reader over the head with authorial intent. There are no subtleties here and everything is stated outright, depriving the reader of any imaginative process. Further, there are far too many characters in this story, most of whom are minor and inconsequential, yet the author goes off on tangents to describe the life and circumstances of each.

I am sympathetic to the message of this book, and my rating is more out of appreciation for seeing someone attempt to bring it into the public discourse, even if the attempt is a bit of a mess and not very literary. I enjoyed the basic premise of the book, especially concerning the bits about miscommunication, which really connected all of the characters together - those were the moments that helped me get through it. It would have been well-served by some serious editing, and perhaps rather than try to tackle so many major issues in one story, Tobar would have done well to focus on one or two, and save the others for future books. In the end, the blatant political agenda of the book overshadows the humanity of it (even to a liberal like me).

The messy, overwrought composition of the story may have been salvaged with a better narrator. Alvarez does well with the accents, but his narration is halting and dispassionate. Further, most of the major protagonists in the book were women, and so I'm a bit confused as to why a man was chosen as the narrator, especially a man who is not particularly adept at imitating believable female voices, which he was required to do for a good portion of the story.

Thank you for this fabulous daily deal!!!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Maybe because I've lived on the east coast all of my life but I was fascinated and charmed to read this novel from the point of view of the industrious Latina maid who works for this family.The characterizations were very good , a little thin at times, but most were robust The story was so well-developed and the setting so well defined that I felt like I was living inside of it. Some literary books are difficult to follow in Audio formar. This is not one of them. Enjoy it.

culture glash

What did you like best about The Barbarian Nurseries? What did you like least?

It showed nicely how each person lives in their own world and really has no idea of the others around him. Reading this one must think "How can anyone or a group of people be so stupid. What about communication?????
However, I actually have seen such stupidity around me in real life.

What did you like best about this story?

was quite entertaining

Which character – as performed by Frankie J. Alvarez – was your favorite?

they where all excellent

Do you think The Barbarian Nurseries needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

I think it needs a different title. As far as a follow up ??? follow two different stories, the family and the housekeeper? Could be interesting.

Any additional comments?

Where did the House keeper end up???????

Loved this book!

I loved this book - particularly the way Hector Tobar creates characters. The story shows how the small choices people make on a daily basis can impact not only their lives but the lives of others. The novel delves into big topics like class, labor, race and immigration in a compelling story of a family and their live in housekeeper.

Good commentary on immigration

This is an interesting and engaging story which contains profound insight into the lives of illegal immigrants working in the USA. It doesn't feel so political that it's preachy and because the story is entertaining and multi-dimensional, it would be a good read for anyone, regardless of their point of view. The main character is relatable and flawed, but still sympathetic. I did have a couple of problems with the plot - I won't go into detail so as to not give spoilers, but there were some flimsy choices by everyone involved, but especially the main character, that I find it hard to believe any halfway intelligent person would make. My other main problem is that I don't speak Spanish and not all the Spanish language was translated, leaving me feeling that I was missing things on occasion, but they were not crucial to the story and were perhaps intentional to cause the reader to relate to a situation that many non-native-English speakers surely encounter daily. With those caveats, it's a thought-provoking book that captivated my attention from start to finish.

Interesting and Entertaining

Would you listen to The Barbarian Nurseries again? Why?

Hector nailed this story about the taciturn, but extremely competent housekeeper, Ariceli, from Mexico who had worked hard to keep the house clean for her Orange County employers who had a penchant to overspend, which finally caused the camel's back to break. The lives of the Torres-Thompsons Family and their mistakes along with the wrong-decisions made for the right reasons by their housekeeper-pushed-nanny made a lot of changes in both their lives. Listened to it a lot which is the same as can't put it down.. Reader was excellent too. Reminded me a little of some of T.C Boyles' books like Tortilla Curtain. Good book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character, of course, was Ariceli.

What about Frankie J. Alvarez’s performance did you like?

His ability to smoothly transition from the Spanish used to the English. The steady speed of the words and not over-emoting.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Almost!

Any additional comments?

It's not literature, but it is a story about illegals who often go unfeatured in books today, though they are talked about constantly in the political world of the news.