Olivia Robertson CCQC 2

Boyle creates a strong and definite atmosphere of vulnerability in his book by presenting a glimmer of hope and then immediately taking it away, and then repeating this cycle indefinitely, characters falling to newer lows every time. The milder examples of this in the book can be found in the all-american Power Couple, Delaney and Kyra. At the beginning of the book, Kyra had two dogs and one cat; one of her dogs was taken from her by a coyote blatantly symbolizing immigration and immigrants. In response to this, she builds up her fence and is lured into a sense of security– only to have her second dog, Osbert, snatched away from her as well. “The animal swept across the grass in five quick strides, snatched the dog up by the back of the neck and hit the fence on the fly,” (194). However, as helpless as Kyra and Delaney may feel, their situation doesn’t come close to the circumstances of América and Cándido. Within the spacing of one paragraph, Boyle manages to throw Cándido and the reader between gratitude and absolute destitute hopelessness. “And then he got work five days in a row, brush clearance,” Boyle starts off, and only a few sentences later, “When work was finished, he didn’t show them any money [...] He never saw the man again,” (195). Later, they’re walking through the streets of the downtown with several hundred dollars, accumulated through weeks, if not months, of hard work. They encounter a man who offers them, in Spanish, a cheap place to sleep. “I’ll give you two nights for twenty bucks–I mean, it’s no big deal. It’s just around the corner,” (210). However, this man turns out to be a cold-hearted criminal, who robs Cándido, forcing them to return to the ditch they were sleeping in. “But there were two more like him waiting in the alley, and how many mojados had they clipped in their time?” It’s in this way that Boyle maintains conflict that the characters never become the masters of.

Throughout the book, Boyle maintains a running comparison between the lives and problems of the immigrant couple and the American couple. At the end of a chapter, Kyra encounters some Mexicans on the property of a house she’s responsible for. Their very presence poses a threat to her ability to sell the house. ““What do you think you’re doing here?” she cried, her voice shrill with authority. “This is private property,”” (164). Meanwhile, after the turn of one page, the reader is immersed in the world of Cándido, who is doing hard labor to earn his wages and does not have any power over any property at all, who’s desperate to be able to provide for his family. “He got work, good work, setting fence posts for five dollars an hour, and then later painting the inside of a house till past dark,” (166). He lies on the dirt by his wife and ruminates on how he will ever be able to get money; fantasizes about the possibility of back-breaking labor in the daytime. “He wanted nothing more in that moment than to die. But then dead men didn’t work either, did they?” (182). Then, once again, the reader is jolted into another reality, in which Delaney rests in the luxury of the home, enjoying his absence from work and his freedom. “Smoke rose from the barbecue in fragrant ginger-smelling tufts as Delaney basted the tofu kebabs with his special honey-ginger marinade and Jordan chased a ball around the yard with Osbert yapping at his heels,” (183). The extreme contrast of the lives of these characters emphasizes extremely what they consider to be an issue and what they’re threatened by.