Troia: Mexican Memoirs

by Bonnie Bremser, Ann Charters (Introduction)

In this newly rediscovered memoir, Bonnie Bremser, ex-wife of Beat-poet Ray Bremser, chronicles her life on the run from the law in the early Sixties. When Ray fled to Mexico in 1961 to avoid imprisonment for armed robbery, a crime he claimed he did not commit, Bonnie followed with their baby daughter, Rachel. In a foreign country with no money and little knowledge of the language, Bonnie was forced into a life of prostitution to support her family and their drug habit. Just twenty-three years old, Bonnie was young and inexperienced, but very much in love with her husband; indeed, she was ready to go to any lengths in an attempt to keep their small family alive and together, even if it meant becoming une troia.

Genres: Biography

213 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very honest and very depressing. The author writes about her time in Mexico where she worked as a prostitute to support herself and her husband. It is raw but well written and totally unglamorous. It makes an excellent contrast with the last book of On the road, to look at the difference gender makes for the beats. I felt so sorry for this woman. She writes how she's terribly in love with her husband, but throughout the book you get no sense of who he is. He's this short of malevolent shadow looming, hitting her, pimping her, and generally treating her like crap. I can't believe she stayed with him for another ten years after this. After leaving him in Mexico, she runs into him again in New York where he talks her into shooting amphetamines and they have great sex. I can't think of a more depressing "happy" ending. Particularly as throughout the book in spite of everything, the untold self destruction, you get the feeling that the author is not stupid or delusional, just putting herself through hell anyway. After the end of the book she gets addicted to heroin, then gets clean after her husband goes to jail, and she writes this book while stoned while he's away. There's so many terribly depressing things about sex in this book. There are many open and frank passages about her sex with her clients. A young woman slowly going mad, doing all the drugs she ca to feel numb and struggling with her conflicting emotions and ideals. It is honest and depressing, it is not decadent in the slightest. The author, after leaving her husband went back to university and got a good degree and worked for the US department of Agriculture for years. I don't think I've ever been so happy when hearing that someone gave up their wild ways for a respectable job. In many ways this book was just like Burroughs’s junkie. No glory to be found here, just misery.

[Linnie Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm struggling with exactly what to say about this book, which is a rare phenomenon for me: I tend to skew opinionated, maybe even judgmental. I'm thankful that I didn't revert to that state as I read Troia, which sort of begs to be evaluated on its own terms. Bonnie Bremser writes against Puritanical morality, and demands her reader interrogate their own social mores/biases/experiences.

That said, this is a memoir about a woman who goes into prostitution very reluctantly, and while I'm decidedly pro-sex work (and sex workers' rights), this was incredibly depressing, the stereotype of someone young, naive, and partially coerced into selling her body because her (truly insufferable Beat poet) husband feels more entitled to ~craft his art~ than pitch in towards their mutual survival.

On a sentence level, this goes very Beat--long, run-on sentences barely punctuated, references to drugs and constant states of altered being, the lingo of the era, etc. It never became bogged down in its own linguistic acrobatics (as I find a lot of Beat works do), and the story itself was presented plainly, in a stream-of-consciousness style no doubt influenced by the pot Bremser admits to smoking as she writes.

Anyway, mulling it over. Would recommend, even for people (like me) who want to gag at the word Kerouac.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro raro. He leído algunos libros de la cultura beat, pero este me parece diferente. Es un libro profundamente deprimente, sin embargo, la manera en que lo escribe me parece un dolor ya superado que generó análisis y crecimiento en la autora y lo hace parecer menos fuerte de lo que es. Quizá por qué lo leí en inglés?

Difícil opinar sobre una memoria. No puedo entender el amor al grado de degradación humana al que Bonnie llega. Un grado en el que no hay moral, no hay respeto por ti mismo y sobre todo no hay reciprocidad.

Es una lectura absorbente y cruda.

[Anais · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love this book. It’s actually Poets and Oddfellows by Brenda Frazer/Bonnie Bremser but Goodreads doesn’t list it.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting memoir about being on the run with her then husband Beat poet Ray Bremser and escaping into Mexico where she enters a life of prostitution. Fascinating but at the same time sickening and depressing. And yet very well written moving through the stories the way you’d expect them to as she wrote it while smoking a lot of pot in 1968 when living in a small courtyard apartment on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan and waiting her husband’s release from prison. Has an excellent introduction by Beat biographer Ann Charters who also included an earlier story of Bonnie Bremser’s in the anthology Beat Down To Your Soul. Happy to say I have a signed by Ann Charters copy of that anthology that I will reread for Bonnie and Ray’s stories.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book formed a large part of my senior thesis on Beat Women Writers. At the time it was out of print and I worked from a photocopy of one of the few originals held in the Boston Public Library archives. Happy to see it's back in circulation. A really interesting, harrowing read. I think I analysed it in terms of memoir and representation of self. I need to re-read. And will try to get it in book-form.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a memoir by a woman who was married to this beat guy on the run from the law in Mexico and she prostituted herself to keep them alive while he sat around writing poetry. Nice guy. There was this one kind of idyllic part where they went to the mountains and lived on some money they'd saved and ate lots of special mushrooms, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

[Biscuits · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a love story.

There was a lot of tricks in here.

At points, could be confusing.

[Jon Marc Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic book. One of the very best primary documents of the Beat Era, and one of the few Beat books written by a woman.

[Little Dipper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a hidden gem. It's dark and takes you through the Meixcan slums and beyond, with and without child, hope, and Ray.