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Border Dance A Novel by T. L. Toma |
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.
"Toma's voice has a distinct presence throughout the novel: distanced, ironic, witty, seamless, unifying. . . . I greatly admire the melding of comedy and profundity, the exact evocation of the various milieus, and the skillful use of dialogue in the novel."—Gordon Weaver
"Border Dance is the first novel, published or in manuscript, that I have read in a long time when I have been annoyed by mundane things (like my own work and teaching classes) interrupting my experience of reading the book. This is a topflight literary work. Without being ‘trendy’ it focuses on a variety of contemporary concerns."—George Garrett
"The whole trip was surprising and delightful; the book was great fun to read. Mr. Toma's style, insights, and sense of fun kept things lively. He's got talent and some juice."—John Yount
A native of Louisville, Kentucky, T. L. TOMA has taught English courses for migrant workers, in literacy programs in inner-cities, and in a school for mentally handicapped adults. His stories have appeared in such venues as Black Warrior Review, Cimarron Review, Fiction International, and The Quarterly. He and his wife, Leticia Saucedo, recently moved from Boston to Austin, Texas.
Border Dance
ISBN 0-87074-400-3 cloth $22.50
ISBN 0-87074-401-1 paper $12.95
LC 96-18371. 6x9. 344 pp.
Fiction.
Publication Date: September 1996.
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