Border Dance: A Novel

By T. L. Toma and T.L. Toma

Book Overview

Frank Reed is a contemporary Prufrock, a man who has lost his moral and emotional centers under the weight of the social and moral disintegration pervasive in society. Dispatched from his Boston-based company to the Mexican border with orders to negotiate a deal that would put profits in American pockets, Reed finds himself on a personal odyssey deep into the Mexican interior. Toma's characters "both major and minor" are complex, ambiguous, and multifaceted. Frank's despair and moral confusion, his tendency to sentimentality, and his ethical imprecision are convincingly etched. Toma's portraits of the Mexican functionary, Garcia, and his family are masterfully nuanced though drawn in broad strokes. As the focus shifts from Boston to Mexico and back, the narrative is propelled by parallel involvements of the major characters: Frank's rediscovery of passion with the young Mexican woman, Socorro, is balanced at home by his wife's attraction to a neighborhood butcher and by their daughter's growing interest in a brilliant but alienated young emigre student. As Frank struggles to reinvent the man he has become, he becomes swept up in the plans of the young Mexican woman, who is desperate to cross the border into what she perceives as a land of wealth and opportunity. The extent of his middle-aged angst is matched by the reach of her hope. In this biting, though often humorous, first novel, the American dream turns harsh.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870744003
• ISBN13: 9780870744006
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Southern Methodist Univ Pr
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking journey to "middle age crazy"

Toma's novel was a very pleasant journey to old Mexico. Bittersweet and desperate, the trip waxes the frustration of dead end careers, inattentive family, and guiltless unexpected pleasures. Toma's style is engaging and thought provoking. The family relaionships are so well elucidated you feel like an uncle privy to their struggles and desires. I can't wait for Toma's next journey into fiction.

Witty, ironic, sexy, evocative of Mexico and middle age....

A fresh "road trip" novel: a middle aged businessman makes a wrong turn in Mexico and heads south into the hinterlands. When he turns north again, he's in the company of a sexy and determined, beautiful peasant girl. That's just the story! The really good part is Frank Reed's moral and emotional self-reviews. Good for SMU! Bad for the big presses that missed a winner.