The Barbarian Nurseries

“Extraordinary . . . An odyssey through the teeming mysteries of Los Angeles” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Deep Down Dark (Los Angeles Times).

Winner of the California Book Award for Fiction

Named a best book of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Boston Globe

With The Barbarian Nurseries, Héctor Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, revealing Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions.

Scott and Maureen Torres-Thompson have always relied on others to run their Orange County home—in particular, Araceli, their prickly Mexican maid. One night, an argument between the couple turns physical, and a miscommunication leaves the children in Araceli’s care. Unable to reach their parents, she takes them to central Los Angeles in the hopes of finding Scott’s estranged Mexican father—an earnest quest that soon becomes a colossal misadventure, with consequences that ripple through every stratum of the sprawling city.

Héctor Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries is a masterful tale of contemporary Los Angeles, a novel as alive as the city itself. Since its first publication, it has been celebrated as a modern classic, and it remains as vital and urgent as the day it was written.

“[An] ode to L. A., as affectionate as it is terrifying . . . Epic in scope . . . Each moment surprises . . . Darkly hilarious and moving.” ―The Washington Post

“Tobar exhibits a seismographic sensitivity to the tensions along the fault lines of his cultural terrain . . . His illuminations become our recognitions.” ―The New York Times Book Review