Barbarian Nurseries The

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'' 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