LA naturalist and liberal Delaney and his wife Kyra live in a subdivision in Topanga Canyon. One day he hits illegal immigrant Candido with his car accidentally. Candido refuses help (afraid of INS) and Delaney ends up giving him twenty bucks. Candido has crossed the border with his young pregnant wife America, desperate to make a better life for his family. They must live in a gulch in the canyon until they can earn enough money to get an apartment. The two men will cross paths again and again, but will they ever see each other as they really are.
The library book club read this for January but because of snow had it delayed to the February meeting. I didn't read it in January thinking it looked Steinbecky and put it off. I figured I really should read it so I could talk about at the meeting. I must say I really didn't like this book. Not that it wasn't well written, because it was. But because it made me uncomfortable and challenged my thinking. And who wants a book that challenges you? I like to believe that I am a truly liberal person, but I saw to much of myself in the thinking of the "white" people in this book in their us vs them attitudes. I truly don't believe there will be an easy answer to the immigration issue, but anybody who reads this novel should come to realize that there is no way a wall or fence is going to fix anything, and maybe it's not a black or white issue.
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