Border Dance: A Novel

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.

Frank Reed is a contemporary Prufrock, a man who has lost his moral and emotional centers under the weight of the social 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. Reed's despair and moral confusion, his tendency to sentimentality, and his ethical imprecision are convincingly etched. As Reed struggles to reinvent the man he has become, he is swept up in the plans of a 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.

Publishers Weekly

Nobody likes Frank Reed-neither his boss nor his teenage daughter and certainly not his wife. For a while, in this first novel, not even the reader can like him. But when the middle-aged, morally corrupt Bostonian embarks on a Mexican business trip that turns into a personal odyssey on a grand scale, Toma makes a convincing argument that Frank is a victim of circumstance, not the indifferent chain-smoker he appears to be. After concluding business sooner than expected, Frank bums around Mexico for a few days and finds himself stuck in a midlife crisis. As a remedy of sorts, the 46-year-old hooks up with named Socorro (meaning, significantly, help or succor), a 19-year-old Mexican woman seeking refuge across the border in the U.S. As expected, Frank and Socorro engage in steamy sexual antics which Toma depicts with evocative descriptions and telling details, making these lusty scenes among the book's most vivid. In the end, the reader roots for Frank, who risks his life more than once to ensure Socorro's safe crossing, despite fears that she will track him down and divulge their affair to Frank's wife. Toma leaves a lot hanging at the end, and his detached narration grows weary. But Frank's story is worth reading if only for the lessons it imparts about honor, love, mortality and redemption. (Dec.)