The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts, and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE NEWS THAT I WAS TO WRITE A BOOK about bullfighting came after a morning spent emptying tubs of human poo..." (more)
Key Phrases: Mexico City, Jack Shaft, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Already the author of one gonzo collection of travel misadventures (2000's Car Camping), Utah-based writer Mark Sundeen is garnering comparisons to archly ironic humorists David Sedaris and Dave Eggers with his second tome, The Making of Toro, but his comical boasting and defiant flights of hyperbolic fancy have more in common with another peer, Neal Pollack, as well as his most obvious influence, the great Hunter S. Thompson. The premise of The Making of Toro is lifted straight out of Hemingway: A publisher approaches Sundeen with the idea of writing a colorful, testosterone-fueled book about bullfighting in Mexico. In true postmodern fashion, the writer rises to the occasion by inventing an accomplished and swaggering Raoul Duke-like alter ego, Travis LaFrance (author of the earlier swashbuckling classic, Fun With Falconry), to mask the fact that he has little actual reporting experience, doesn't speak Spanish, and is woefully short on testosterone himself. (You won't find his brand of hapless travelogue in (Men's Journal.)

Not surprisingly, there's nothing romantic about Sundeen's vision of bullfighting and its macho practitioners. Addicted to wandering off the beaten path, he'd much rather chat with the folks who dispose of the carcasses afterwards. "In the bullring the crowd roars in ecstasy," he writes toward the end of his search for the soul of this bloody sport. "I've heard it before: the sound of great bullfighting happening while I'm in the men's room or snack shack or out in the tunnel for fresh air. I'm writing a book, and the guy whose job it is to lug the beef onto the truck demands to be interviewed. So while the matador is killing with a single graceful thrust, I'm outside the meat truck learning about Oscar Rodriguez." In the end, though, Oscar's story and many others like it are far more interesting than the cliché-ridden tales we usually get in books about glamorous, manly pursuits like climbing Everest or diving down to the Titanic, and Sundeen's wonderfully dry and evocative prose is a joy to read as he takes us behind the scenes to the dark alleys where many adventurers would never think to look. --Jim DeRogatis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"My art is my life, and versa vice," proclaims Travis LaFrance, Sundeen's ever-confident, fictional alter-ego, in this amusing, chivalric tongue-in-cheek story of a writer set on acquainting everyday readers with Mexican bullfighting. After receiving little recognition for his previous book on falconry (which, as Sundeen explains, "is about birds only insomuch as the falcons serve as a metaphor for my flight toward freedom"), the author attempts to redeem himself by unveiling bullfighting's rugged, fiery ritual. The motivated yanqui (Spanglish for "Yankee") buys a one-way ticket to Mexico City, expecting to fall in love with the tradition of bullfighting, the captivating beauty of Mexican women and the splendor of one of the most acclaimed capitals of the bullfighting world. Instead, he finds grimy buildings, cybercafes and Domino's Pizza-sponsored bullrings, which look more like circuses than a noble institution's holy ground. But Sundeen refuses to come to terms with a deflated dream. With each misguided attempt to find bullfighting's heart and soul, LaFrance uses a quixotic idealism to convert reality (e.g., an undercooked drumstick served in a dingy corner diner) to what could be (an exotic delicacy, served only to the most esteemed of guests). It's a skewed travelogue, in which the line between a gritty reality and a chimerical fantasy is warmly blurred. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743255631
• ISBN-13: 978-0743255639
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,383,136 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable New Writer, June 18, 2003

By	Jim Meigs (New York NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves (Hardcover)

"The Making of Toro" is one of those books (like, say, "A Confederacy of Dunces") that may not make much of a splash when it first appears, but that is destined to be passed from hand to hand and reader to reader until a small cult builds around it and its author.

For starters, this book is flat-out hilarious. But it also marks the arrival of a writer who is bound to make a huge impact. Comparisons with Eggers and Sedaris aren't out of line: Sundeen blurs the line between memoir and fiction with the requisite postmodern relish. "Toro" is a tale told by a narrator so charmingly unreliable and self-deluded that we actually can't help rooting for him.

But the writer Sundeen most resembles is probably Mark Twain (seriously!). In "Toro" (and in his earlier book "Car Camping"), Sundeen shows the same dry wit, the same trust that the reader will actually get the joke, and the same faith that sometimes the naive, deluded bumbler might see truths that more worldly types do not. And, like Twain, Sundeen conceals genuine depth beneath light humor. "Toro" begins as a comedy, but by the end it deepens into a surpringly poignant coming of age story.

So buy this book--it's funny and original and thoroughly enjoyable--then pass it on.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Piece Of Work, July 16, 2004

By	Steve A. Fulton (Redondo Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sundeen has done it again. This is another deep, multi-layered composition much like "Car Camping". It's very humorous book, but the best parts are when the narrator breaks through his veneer of self-delusion and discusses his true feelings. Whenever I read a book like this, I hope for one or two passages that will resonate within me and justify (in my head) my own experiences. This book is filled with them.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Hemingway-esque, July 15, 2008

By	A_Guy (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves (Hardcover)

A great story told in a simple and colorful tone. Mark Sundeen is a great American writer who melds the classics with the modern. A tale of travel that envelopes the reader in characters and color.