The Border Is Burning

by Ito Romo

Loners, families, fathers, wives—anyone who lives on the border between Mexico and the United States also lives on a border of violence and complexity. Here a master of Chicano noir explores that world in lean and haunting stories that you will never forget.ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORSIto Romo teaches literature and creative writing at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of El Puente/The Bridge, also available from UNM Press.ACCLAIMThe Border is Burning is a ferocious portrait of San Antonio and Laredo and the landscape in-between. Filled with desperation and despair, told in sparse, gritty language and dialogue that is remarkable for its authenticity, Ito Romo’s stories are like scenes suddenly flashed in a lightning storm, sharp and brilliant, like shards of glass on a highway. These stories will be compared to Raymond Carver, but their true lineage is from Juan Rulfo. Without any sentimentality, yet written with a lot of heart, Ito Romo takes us to the belly of the beast.-- Sandra Cisneros“Speed and day laborers, horse trailers and drug dealers, one-night stands that last all year—Ito Romo doesn’t just know the border, he knows the hearts of the people who live there. And he writes it on the page with blood. You better buy at least two copies of this book. Because you’ll be giving it away, making people read it. But you want one for yourself, too. It’s fiction that stays with you.”-- Stephen Graham Jones, author of Growing Up Dead in Texas“Romo’s short stories cut the reader like a knife. His dark and authentic vision of life along the border captures the gritty reality of social relations in the era of free trade and narco economics. There are no innocents on either side of the U.S./Mexico divide. Everyone is implicated in the exchange of drugs, love, guns, grace, and bodily fluids. Romo’s riveting gothic prose is a fresh iteration of Latino noir, the perfect antidote to the saccharine-sweet convention of minority fiction, firmly placing him in the company of John Rechy and Junot Díaz.”-- María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, author of The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

105 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 16, 2013

About the author

Ito Romo was born and raised on the border in Laredo, Texas. His work, dubbed “Chicano Gothic” and “Chicano Noir,” shows the dark and gritty life along Interstate 35 through South Texas, where his family has lived for 11 generations. A former Professor of English Language and Literature, Romo was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2019. His books includeThe Border is Burning and El Puente / The Bridge, both published by University of New Mexico Press.He lives in San Antonio.

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

Gritty and sad and very real. If you like Mariana Enriquez you might enjoy this collection.

[Elizabeth☮]

A look at people that live on the border between Texas and Mexico. But the border that Romo paints is one that is more than physical; it is cultural, spiritual, psychological and metaphysical.

These are gritty vignettes of people that are marginalized by society. Romo gives a glimpse into their lives (some stories are just a scene, not an entire story arc) and then we are back into our own world.

Once you have seen the portraits Romo paints, you are then intertwined with the world he creates. It is one that is difficult to forget.

[Mackenzie Clevenger]

3.75 - always so impressive when writers can make such expansive worlds in just a few pages.

This is really my first time reading a collection of work that doesn’t quite qualify as short stories, and exists more in a flash medium, but I really enjoyed this collection. Despite some of the pieces only being a three or four pages long, Romo is able to create characters who we know intimately and depict the world with brutal truth. His work feels both timely and honest, while still maintaining the interesting fantastical depiction of our world which is required of fiction. In particular I enjoyed “Killer Dog” and “Whale Rot,” as both are entirely plausible in real life, but have a layer of the strange over top. Romo’s writing is so descriptive in such a short amount of time that it’s truly impressive and commendable. Definitely an interesting and intriguing craft study, and this would be a good collection to read if you’re trying to experiment with compression and concision.

Really my only critique with this collection is that I feel like a lot of the pieces have a similar vibe, and I typically prefer for my short fiction collections to have stories that are wildly different from each other. A lot of the stories covered the same themes and issues, and while I 100% understand having a connecting theme and elements between pieces, that’s just not what I personally prefer in my collections.

Really enjoyed this collection! All of these pieces are raw, real, emotional, and full of brutal tension. I enjoyed Romo’s writing style and even in stories that felt familiar to others, that writing style at least ensured that each individual character felt unique. It’s also a really short collection, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a read if you’re ever in the mood for something short, dark, depressing, and refreshingly realistic.

[Erishia Woods]

overall a cool little read. There were multiple short stories pertaining to different people that live near on the border. Some more interesting than others. Some were left on a sort of cliff hanger where you wanted to know more.

[Kathryn Grace Loves Horror]

Review to come.

[Rudy]

Set against the backdrop of South Texas, this collection of short stories offers a fascinating glimpse into a shadowy world we all hope doesn't exist - a world dominated by addiction, pain, loneliness and suffering. Reading these stories make me thankful for the life I have and yet I'm challenged to consider those who live their lives in the margins. This is a dark distraction from the saccharine books that dominate the typical summer beach read. Bien hecho!

[Mills College Library]

Fiction R766b 2013

[Wayne]

short stories, sometimes with endings that leave you hanging, sorta like you can imagine the ending that works best for you.

[Cheryce Clayton]

Brutal

Like memories, each vignette is a glimpse at life in the no-man's land between the cash economy and the mainstream.

[Catherine]

Brutal read, but I could not put it down once I started. Series of short stories of people living amongst the border.