The Diezmo

by Rick Bass

The Diezmo tells the incredible story of the Mier Expedition, one of the most absurd and tragic military adventures in the history of Texas -- a country and a state, as Rick Bass writes, that was "born in blood." In the early days of the Republic of Texas, two young men, wild for glory, impulsively volunteer for an expedition Sam Houston has ordered to patrol the Mexican border. But their dreams of triumph soon fade into prayers for survival, and all that is on their minds is getting home and having a cool drink of water. After being captured in a raid on the Mexican village of Mier, escaping, and being recaptured, the men of the expedition are punished with the terrible diezmo, in which one man in ten is randomly chosen to die. The survivors end up in the most dreaded prison in Mexico. There they become pawns in an international chess game to decide the fate of Texas, and with their hopes of release all but extinguished, they make one desperate, last-ditch effort to escape.

A great crossover book with appeal for high school students. It will also interest readers of westerns and historical fiction.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Novels, War, Westerns, The United States Of America

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2005

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.

Reviews

[Michael B. Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1842, Texas and Mexico were at war, with the United States attempting to annex Texas through diplomacy and Great Britain supporting Mexico. The border was a tragic flashpoint as soldiers from both sides clashed, pillaged, and fought to claim victory or avoid defeat. Among the various more or less official expeditions, the Mier Expedition was one of the most devastating for the Texans. During the campaign, they faced an enemy ten times their size and were defeated. Those left standing were captured and taken into Mexico. They tried to escape near Salado, but it didn't work out. They were caught again, chained, and given the "Diezmo," which was a pretty harsh punishment. The Mexican guards filled a jar with white beans, adding one black bean for every nine white beans. Each prisoner was forced to pull one bean, and anyone who pulled a black one was executed on the spot.
Rick Bass tells the story of James Alexander, a 15-year-old who's never seen a war. He and some friends are recruited to patrol the border as part of the Mier Expedition, which is made up of seasoned veterans and young boys. But what starts as a quest for glory and triumph quickly turns into unbearable violence. Those who had hoped for easy victory and medals soon find themselves praying for survival and longing for home.
The book isn't bad, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. Everything works up until the Diezmo scene, but after that, something falters, which is why I didn't rate it higher. The writing is compelling and concise, with measured yet sometimes poetic descriptions that evoke strong emotions. Rick Bass doesn't try to wow you with overly complex or contrived prose; he wants to immerse the reader in the story, but the novel doesn't have a lot of narrative drive. At times, it reads more like a historical essay, and the main character sounds like he was dropped into an era that isn't his. He comes off more like a historian observing the past than someone truly living it: he's too distant, too different, too modern. But worth a read.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a war book, but not in a "black hawk down" way. It's a history book, but not in the "four score and seven years ago" way. It is a wilderness book but not in the "look at all the beauty of nature" kind of way. For some readers, this may seem to drag on a bit, but for me, the Epilogue gave the entire text a meaning, a purpose, an emotion. I think Bass is masterful in the way he bridges huge points within a somewhat simple story about suffering, key decisions, and the raw gut level human emotions present in all but expressed in so few.

I get that some compare this to Blood Meridian; the setting is similar, the experience is very much the same, the same questions about humanity's motives.....but it tickles the brain slightly differently. He is equally profound in the story as Cormac was in BM, but far gentler in carrying you through the sun drenched, God forsaken landscapes that these early invaders lived through (largely they actually died there).

Written in the first few days after the invasion of Baghdad, I think Bass' main point is to be careful regarding war mongering. He sees the fact that mankind will always be positioned to defending ones self BUT he illustrates that it's different than invading another for the pure lust of war. I am certain there are many other points he intended to make but I was caught in the story and likely missed a bunch. Its all put into motion in a story from years ago- the time when Texas stood independent from Mexico but was not yet officially in the USA. The narrator is now an old man, telling his perspectives as a young man. Despite the years between the "doing" and the "telling", the foundations of his emotions are as strong or stronger some 50 years after the fact. Good stuff- I get you man.

[Kirk Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good Western and a fascinating bit of history. A great reminder of why Texans are always so Big on their independence! A land paid for in blood, in the time period 1836 to 1846 disputes over the border were cause for marauding and frequent skirmishes between Texians and the armies of Santa Anna. The book follows the fate of a band of Texas militia recruits who make a foray across the border into Mexico. That is just the beginning of the misadventures that will keep them from home soil for many years. I was very pleased to read a Rick Bass novel for the first time, so much of his work being short stories. Very well done it is simply told, vaguely reminds me of a Conrad adventure, and the landscape is very close to that of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. A tale of extreme hardship.

[Linda Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is historical fiction based on the 1842 Mier Expedition during which Texian soldiers, many that were young teenagers, crossed the Rio Grande River into Mexico and invaded the village of Ciudad Mier, south of Laredo, in search of provisions.

In a battle with the Mexican army at Ciudad Mier they were greatly outnumbered and eventually surrendered to the Mexicans thinking they'd be allowed to return to their homes in Texas. Instead the 243 captured soldiers were marched south, condemned to death. The death sentence was rescinded but after a failed escape attempt over the mountains they were forced to endure the Diezmo.

The Diezmo occurs not quite halfway through the book. It was a "decimation" of the troops in which they were forced to choose beans from a jar. Seventeen of the beans were black and the rest of them were white. Anyone choosing a black bean was executed. This was their punishment for trying to escape. The book continues as the soldiers are marched south again toward forced labor and imprisonment.

The expedition started on December 19, 1842 and many of the prisoners died along the way from various causes. The imprisonment ended 0n September 16, 1844.

This fictional account was well-written and really captured my heart as I sympathized with the teenagers forced to endure it. Of course, they weren't innocents as they'd engaged in combat in villages along the Texas/Mexico border prior to being captured. Still I couldn't help but care about their attempts to escape and forced labor activities.

When I started the book I wondered if I could enjoy reading it enough to finish. As it turned out, I liked the book and finished it within a few days. I liked the first-person point of view and became attached to some of the characters, including Charles McLaughlin, an artist who was not a fictional character, and whose Mier Expedition art can be found on the Internet.

Cleanliness factor... well, aside from the violence, it was fine. One could not tell this story without some violence. It was not graphically described.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shows what historical fiction can be when done by a great writer. Since this is the first book by Rick Bass I've read, I cannot say how it compares to his other work. What I can attest to is that he brings the story of a Texas Republic-era adventure turned gritty prison story to memorable life. He manages to give the story a bit of an epic feel in only 205 pages. While I think he could have gone a little easier on the historical quotes, this is a minor complaint. What Bass does effectively is to show the human side of the large amount of blood shed in Texas' fight for independence and the bombast it encouraged. A quick read but not a disposable book.

[Heather C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic story with an ancestor of mine in it, so all the more interesting, as I grew up knowing the story of the diezmo in regards to this man. But this is a novel, with the real expedition woven into it.

I love just about anything Rick Bass writes, and this was no disappointment. It would be hard to not draw a comparison between The Diezmo and Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses--two young Texans, looking for adventure, head south of the new border and get more than they bargained for in violence and a world they know nothing about. There is even a beautiful young Mexican girl who the narrator falls for, but can't ever hope to have, as she is the daughter of an important Mexican official. But, I loved John Grady and Rawlins and I loved this one too.

I think I would have given it five stars if the narrator hadn't made me so crazy with his endless hemming and hawing. Of course, had he never gone, or escaped right away there would be no story...

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Diezmo(The Tithe)is a top-flight historical novel, artfully told and tied to real events in Texas history. The Mier Expedition, Texans raiding Mexico, is the topic. As Rick Bass's story grew more unbelievable and outrageous, I flipped to the net to fact-check the crazier stuff. Dang. The prison and the moat were real. The "tithe" is based on a what Texas History.com calls the "Black Bean Affair." The author has expertly woven historical fact into a highly literary fiction. Beautiful voice.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 (when will GR let us to fractions of stars please) but in all seriousness n this was a blessedly brief book, not because I didn't enjoy it or it was in some way lacking in quality, but because it was dense and a heavy subject matter whose intensity would've diminished the enjoyability if I'd lived in that world for a very long time. Western and war story combined in an era (the Republic of Texas) of which I have a little knowledge and a decent amount of interest. Aside from the narrator being terribly inconsistent with the decision to either read the gringo-lized pronunciation of Spanish / Mexican words and places or a (poor) attempt at correct pronunciation in a Western accent (I'm a Spanish teacher - used to both and much more, but for the love of all that is good be consistent!) It was all good. Oh, and the bean thing... I've seen that used in another literary work set in the Republic of Texas location/ era... is this a thing Texans and/ or the Mexican army were known for?

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s now official—all fond memory I had of Rick Bass’s writing when I read his first story collection when it first came out is gone. He is prolific and has many accolades to his resume, so dislike from a shlub like me he has no reason to fret over (or even notice). Here is where we part ways—I made the effort, and found a distasteful machismo throughout that makes his writing smack to me more of a throwback mythology than a writer with something new to offer. On a sentence level he can be interesting, but the sums of those sentences only remind me why there need to be a higher diversity of faces at the publishing table.

[Carla Putzu · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Non) C'era una volta il Texas.
Che per esserci passò attraverso la furia sanguinaria di guerre e battaglie di indicibile ferocia; alcune, esemplari sono raccontate in questo romanzo a sfondo storico, pungente e crudo, ma anche carico di pathos, di umanità, di consapevolezza.
Un popolo contro un altro, atrocità commesse da entrambi i lati di una trincea che si aprì nella lotta di un Paese per la propria esistenza indipendente.
A tutti i costi.

Il mio primo Rick Bass, letto in un fiato. Appassionante.

[Judy Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much all I knew about Texas before reading this book was that it took me a long time to drive through, but it was worth it to visit Larry McMurtry’s All Booked Up store in Archer City and meet him in the b&b there. And football. But now that I’ve read Bass’s excellent book, I understand what Texans had to do to wrestle the land away from Mexico—and how they often failed miserably. Plus, Sam Houston is put into context for me.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A band of Texicans seeking adventure and glory get much more than they bargained for. They proceed to start a mini-war with Mexico, destroy a village, get captured and struggle to survive. I read this awhile ago.

[Flesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about war, and capture with all the blood, gore, boredom, chaos, and fear that goes with it. This novel shares the story of the Mier Expedition from the point of view of a teen soldier.

[Jess Peck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would give 3.7 if I could. Really good story, well written and simple quick read. Not the most thorough plot or wrap up and didn't get me overly attached to the characters but definitely worth the read and very enjoyable for a little bit of Mexican American history.

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for a more Western feel. The characters weren't all too fleshed out, but it read smoothly.

Even 3 star

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatest American writer alive.

[Leo W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, and nearly as good.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done historical fiction that read like Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. And I loved Blood Meridian.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't normally gravitate towards war stories, but this was a good one. The novel follows the members of the failed Meir Expedition, in which volunteer soldiers from the Nation of Texas (ah, those were the days) attempted to pillage their way through Mexico. But the Texans are caught and the story mostly details their subsequent time as prisoners of the Mexican army.

There are some incredibly intense scenes - the Diezmo being chief among them - but also plenty of quiet reflection from the narrator. He has time to consider fate and free will, to ponder action versus inaction, and to figure out how one might maintain a sense of humanity in an extended imprisonment. The narrator is telling the story as an old man looking back at his 16 year old self, so the reader is treated to both wisdom and naivety.

My only complaint about the book is that the Diezmo is really the climax of the story, but occurs near the middle. Everything that happens afterward is a march to the inevitable (you know he gets out, because he's an old man now!). Really, though, an engaging and well written story which I recommend mostly to Dan.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-known outdoor writer Rick Bass tells the story of the infamous Mier Expedition, a group of wildcats who, in 1842, crossed the Texas border into Mexico, attacked a village, and were captured. They were marched across Mexico, and most of them died. At one point, Santa Ana ordered that 1/10 of them should be executed, so black beans and white beans were put into a jar, a tenth of them black. (Hence, the "diezmo") The men who drew the black beans were taken out and shot. My great-great grandfather, Willis Coplan, was part of this group, and (obviously) drew a white bean. He's mentioned on pages 146 and 202. So naturally I recommend this book. But even without the personal connection, I would still recommend it, for its vivid writing and historical significance.

[Patricia Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just after the battle at the Alamo and the defeat of the Mexican army in San Jacinto, Texas became a 'Republic'. Sam Houston became the President of this independent country and as sentiments were still high against the Mexicans a band of mercenaries, unofficially sanctioned by Sam Houston, crossed the Rio Grand to annex Mexico to the 'Republic' of Texas. After a dismal defeat in Ciudad Mier, Mexico the entire band of Texans were captured. The book tells of the treatment of these prisoners, attempted escape(s) and their final return to Texas. Texas by this time had become a State of the Union.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of The Diazmo is flawless, engrossing and exciting. Then it begins to read like a cribbed, poorly integrated quotes from a stack of index cards.

Whaaa happened? I was mortified and high expectations were dashed. The facts were interesting in an academic sense, but as a novel it was an essay.

The plot has been recounted by others, so I'll pass. It bears some resemblance to Blood Meridian and All The Pretty Horses if not all The Border Trilogy both in story elements, character elements and language. It possible they share a common source. There is nothing that bothers me about that. I had expected much more and for a while I was happy thinking I was getting it.

[Jeff]

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, it was similar to Blood Meridian (which I never finished), but toned down, and with more heart and humanity from the narrator.

But the second half dragged. This review captured my thoughts: "The most tellling aspect of my experience with this read was that I wanted it to be over so I could move on to something else."

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book about a kid from Texas who volunteered to fight Mexico in the mid 1800's during the Mexican-American war. He and his friend went out with an idea of how things would turn out, but it ended with a much different, unexpected outcome than the protagonist anticipated. It was a well written novel. This was my first book by this author (Rick Bass), but I'll probably check out more books by this author.

[Neill Goltz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Attended a "conversation" with Montana-based author Bass in Bozeman in early June, hosted by editor of The Montana Quarterly, Scott McMillion.

Quite Wonderful.

All his many books were sold out at across-the-street bookstore afterwards, but managed to check out this early novelette out of local library. It was alright, but I'm more interested in his other books, including the one about his dog!

Gonna get there, I promise.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A literary exploration into Historical Fiction about a raid into Mexico for revenge on bandits that raided Texas. The main character relates the story of their adventures, capture, escapes, and imprisonment. A wonderful read. Every time I pick up Rick Bass, I am left happy that I have read his work.

[Will E · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew I wasn't bound to love everything Rick Bass has ever written, and so while I liked this fine, it's certainly my least favorite, and it's my least favorite because the language didn't feel quite the same- it felt a little shallow and not nearly as beautiful. Perhaps because he felt the need to keep throwing bits of his research in? Just wasn't quite the same, somehow.

[Monica Casanova · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was reading In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson alongside of Rick Bass' Diezmo. No comparison- In the Garden of Beasts is a much superior historical fiction novel. I was never really engaged in the story or character for Diezmo.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite Rick Bass work, but well-written nonetheless. The most tellling aspect of my experience with this read was that I wanted it to be over so I could move on to something else...

[Kerry Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great historical western; both literary and gutsy in the spirit and tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry.