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Texas: The Great Theft
"Mexico's greatest woman writer."—Roberto Bolaño
"A luminous writer . . . Boullosa is a masterful spinner of the fantastic"—Miami Herald
An imaginative writer in the tradition of Juan Rulfo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Cesar Aira, Carmen Boullosa shows herself to be at the height of her powers with her latest novel. Loosely based on the little-known 1859 Mexican invasion of the United States, Texas is a richly imagined evocation of the volatile Tex-Mex borderland. Boullosa views border history through distinctly Mexican eyes, and her sympathetic portrayal of each of her wildly diverse characters—Mexican ranchers and Texas Rangers, Comanches and cowboys, German socialists and runaway slaves, Southern belles and dancehall girls—makes her storytelling tremendously powerful and absorbing.
Shedding important historical light on current battles over the Mexican–American frontier while telling a gripping story with Boullosa's singular prose and formal innovation, Texas marks the welcome return of a major writer who has previously captivated American audiences and is poised to do so again.
Carmen Boullosa (b. 1954) is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. Author of seventeen novels, her books have been translated into numerous world languages. Recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship, Boullosa is currently Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York.
Samantha Schnee is founding editor and chairman of the board of Words Without Borders. She has also been a senior editor with Zoetrope, and her translations have appeared in the Guardian, Granta, and the New York Times.
"A luminous writer . . . Boullosa is a masterful spinner of the fantastic"—Miami Herald
An imaginative writer in the tradition of Juan Rulfo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Cesar Aira, Carmen Boullosa shows herself to be at the height of her powers with her latest novel. Loosely based on the little-known 1859 Mexican invasion of the United States, Texas is a richly imagined evocation of the volatile Tex-Mex borderland. Boullosa views border history through distinctly Mexican eyes, and her sympathetic portrayal of each of her wildly diverse characters—Mexican ranchers and Texas Rangers, Comanches and cowboys, German socialists and runaway slaves, Southern belles and dancehall girls—makes her storytelling tremendously powerful and absorbing.
Shedding important historical light on current battles over the Mexican–American frontier while telling a gripping story with Boullosa's singular prose and formal innovation, Texas marks the welcome return of a major writer who has previously captivated American audiences and is poised to do so again.
Carmen Boullosa (b. 1954) is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. Author of seventeen novels, her books have been translated into numerous world languages. Recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship, Boullosa is currently Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York.
Samantha Schnee is founding editor and chairman of the board of Words Without Borders. She has also been a senior editor with Zoetrope, and her translations have appeared in the Guardian, Granta, and the New York Times.
283 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
61 people are currently reading
1272 people want to read
About the author
Carmen Boullosa
79 books177 followersCarmen Boullosa (b. September 4, 1954 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a leading Mexican poet, novelist and playwright. Her work is eclectic and difficult to categorize, but it generally focuses on the issues of feminism and gender roles within a Latin American context. Her work has been praised by a number of prominent writers, including Carlos Fuentes, Alma Guillermoprieto and Elena Poniatowska, as well as publications such as Publishers Weekly. She has won a number of awards for her works, and has taught at universities such as Georgetown University, Columbia University and New York University (NYU), as well as at universities in nearly a dozen other countries. She is currently Distinguished Lecturer at the City College of New York. She has two children -- Maria Aura and Juan Aura -- with her former partner, Alejandro Aura --and is now married to Mike Wallace, the Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
(from Wikipedia)
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
January 4, 2016
Boullosa achieves the amazing goal of immersing you in a cast of 190 named characters so that as events unfold in the border troubles of 1859, you participate as if you belonged to all segments of the community. Each individual has both an assigned trade--butcher, vaquero, innkeeper--and a political role they choose or find thrust upon them. (Women are important characters here, so I’m going to use the less-than-desirable ‘they’ rather than ‘he’.) That is, while the conflict is sparked by gringo attitudes and confiscation aimed at the Mexicans, at every moment you are aware that ‘the Gringos’ are individuals both perpetrating the violence and suffering from its the side effects, as are the American Indian tribes, the Mexicans, and the blacks--both slave and free-- groups of individuals. These 190 separate people matter.
For me the most astounding thing was that by virtue of the care she takes to situate each character in commerce and relationship as she introduces him or her, you can keep them straight. It also helped that I wrote down every single one as I encountered them, but I rarely had to refer to my notes. Somehow you cared about each person, even though you only spent a few sentences or paragraphs with them. The tone is detached and semi-fantastic at the same time, with embedded stories providing background about the longstanding and pervasive violence in the region.
The story itself begins with an upper class Mexican American who is insulted and won’t take it any longer. But this is really about the backstory of land confiscation and general doubledealing in Texas, where the original gringo settlers seized the land they had been given by the Mexican government and created an independent country, then joined the United States as a slave state, then took to stealing what the Mexicans had left in the region. By chance (sort of) I am reading Ulysses S Grant’s memoirs simultaneously. His first battle experience was on exactly the ground of this novel, what is now Brownsville Texas, across the Rio Grande (or Rio Bravo) from Matamoros, Mexico. These events take place about 10 years later, after the US had invaded Mexico, won Mexican cessation of Texas, California, etc, and the wild west was in full operation. The slave trade and recapture business is important, because Texans could own slaves but Mexico granted their freedom if they made it across the river.
Boullosa is brutal in her portrayal of gringo attitudes about the characters and capabilities of Mexicans, blacks and American Indians. The main character shapes a coalition from these rejected groups to fight back. I leave you to guess whether he wins or loses. Based on the author’s note at the back, there is some factual basis for the story. There was a Robin Hood who organized L Raza and occupied Bownsville. Boullosa also says she borrowed characters from Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and films, but I wasn’t attuned to catch them.
Boullosa apparantly writes frequently about women’s issues, and the women here are crucial. Many are victims, but some are using the flexible rules of the frontier to carve out different lives for themselves. In general, though, you wouldn’t have wanted to be a woman on the frontier.
I recommend this highly. She is definitely an accomplished writer, using interesting techniques to weave your immersive experience. Occasionally the cliched character or image clumks (e.g. the hysterical wife of the main institutional thief) but most of the writing is wonderful. And the names are great--it’s quite clear who are the heros and who the villains. Said wealth institutional thief using the courts to effect his confiscations is named Stealman, for example. Sounds heavy handed, but packing in 190 characters gives you a pass on helping the reader decide where they belong quickly. I’m wavering between 4 and 5; 4 for now.
For me the most astounding thing was that by virtue of the care she takes to situate each character in commerce and relationship as she introduces him or her, you can keep them straight. It also helped that I wrote down every single one as I encountered them, but I rarely had to refer to my notes. Somehow you cared about each person, even though you only spent a few sentences or paragraphs with them. The tone is detached and semi-fantastic at the same time, with embedded stories providing background about the longstanding and pervasive violence in the region.
The story itself begins with an upper class Mexican American who is insulted and won’t take it any longer. But this is really about the backstory of land confiscation and general doubledealing in Texas, where the original gringo settlers seized the land they had been given by the Mexican government and created an independent country, then joined the United States as a slave state, then took to stealing what the Mexicans had left in the region. By chance (sort of) I am reading Ulysses S Grant’s memoirs simultaneously. His first battle experience was on exactly the ground of this novel, what is now Brownsville Texas, across the Rio Grande (or Rio Bravo) from Matamoros, Mexico. These events take place about 10 years later, after the US had invaded Mexico, won Mexican cessation of Texas, California, etc, and the wild west was in full operation. The slave trade and recapture business is important, because Texans could own slaves but Mexico granted their freedom if they made it across the river.
Boullosa is brutal in her portrayal of gringo attitudes about the characters and capabilities of Mexicans, blacks and American Indians. The main character shapes a coalition from these rejected groups to fight back. I leave you to guess whether he wins or loses. Based on the author’s note at the back, there is some factual basis for the story. There was a Robin Hood who organized L Raza and occupied Bownsville. Boullosa also says she borrowed characters from Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and films, but I wasn’t attuned to catch them.
Boullosa apparantly writes frequently about women’s issues, and the women here are crucial. Many are victims, but some are using the flexible rules of the frontier to carve out different lives for themselves. In general, though, you wouldn’t have wanted to be a woman on the frontier.
I recommend this highly. She is definitely an accomplished writer, using interesting techniques to weave your immersive experience. Occasionally the cliched character or image clumks (e.g. the hysterical wife of the main institutional thief) but most of the writing is wonderful. And the names are great--it’s quite clear who are the heros and who the villains. Said wealth institutional thief using the courts to effect his confiscations is named Stealman, for example. Sounds heavy handed, but packing in 190 characters gives you a pass on helping the reader decide where they belong quickly. I’m wavering between 4 and 5; 4 for now.
June 8, 2015
For native Texans, “The Great Theft” component of this novel’s title could be substituted with “The Great Corrective,” or even “The Great Slap in the Face.” I was officially taught Texas history decades ago in elementary school, and I am sure what I learned was as myth-fueled as accounts of U.S. history than include George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Over the years, I have picked up a more realistic view of how this state developed and I assume that what is taught in schools has shifted somewhat closer to reality. But Boullosa’s novel, set in 1859 on the Texas/Mexican border, presents the land grab at the birth of this state for exactly what it was. By the time of the novel, with Texas a part of the United States, the American citizens living in Bruneville (Brownville today) are distinguished by their avarice, racism, casual violence, and devotion to slavery.
The Fist Cortina War of 1859 is the historical incident from which Boullosa spins her tale. Her fictionalization involves some historical facts, some slight name changes, and a large cast of minor characters who provide a kaleidoscopic view of the events. When the local sheriff, a predictable lowlife character, pistol whips an elderly Mexican for public drunkenness, the scion of a distinguished Mexican family intervenes. The sheriff calls him a “dirty greaser” and gets shot in the leg for the insult. The ramifications of that moment play out over a period of a few days in scenes that are alternately tragic, comic, enraging, and often hard to follow.
For the first third of Boullosa’s novel, I couldn’t pretend to keep up with the characters, most of whom tended to make repeated brief appearances many pages apart. But once she has set her elaborate stage, Boullosa settles into some grand storytelling. I suppose the awkward term “tragi-comedy” can be applied to this novel, but the story is best left unlabelled. After her microscopic study of a few days in a border town, the author concludes with five pages summarizing the future lives of her characters. Her “Author’s Note” confirms that her theme all along has been a sweeping view of how history happens.
The Fist Cortina War of 1859 is the historical incident from which Boullosa spins her tale. Her fictionalization involves some historical facts, some slight name changes, and a large cast of minor characters who provide a kaleidoscopic view of the events. When the local sheriff, a predictable lowlife character, pistol whips an elderly Mexican for public drunkenness, the scion of a distinguished Mexican family intervenes. The sheriff calls him a “dirty greaser” and gets shot in the leg for the insult. The ramifications of that moment play out over a period of a few days in scenes that are alternately tragic, comic, enraging, and often hard to follow.
For the first third of Boullosa’s novel, I couldn’t pretend to keep up with the characters, most of whom tended to make repeated brief appearances many pages apart. But once she has set her elaborate stage, Boullosa settles into some grand storytelling. I suppose the awkward term “tragi-comedy” can be applied to this novel, but the story is best left unlabelled. After her microscopic study of a few days in a border town, the author concludes with five pages summarizing the future lives of her characters. Her “Author’s Note” confirms that her theme all along has been a sweeping view of how history happens.
January 1, 2015
with a colorful and lively ensemble cast, mexican novelist carmen boullosa offers a fictionalized account of the 1859 first cortina war. texas: the great theft, while beautifully crafted, at times suffers from a surfeit of characters and over-exposition. flirting with the fringes of magical realism, however, boullosa's tale is a rollicking re-imagining of the mid-19th century border skirmish set along the rio grande.
*translated from the spanish by samantha schnee (words without borders)
**boullosa's texas is the inaugural release from deep vellum, a promising, non-profit publisher of literary translation based in dallas.
"if we don't get rid of them, before we know it they'll pass a law preventing us from working on the other side of the río bravo, not just poor folks, but all mexicans. as for property... you've seen how they respect it, the gringos all have silver tongues. we ain't seen nothing yet, the worst is still to come. they'll put up a fence or build a wall so we can't cross over to 'their' texas... as if it were theirs!... and then, you'll see, listen closely, they'll take the water from our river, they'll divert it for their own purposes, who knows how they'll do it... but you'll see! they'll take everything we have... there won't be a single mustang or a plot of land they don't claim as theirs. south of the rio bravo will become violent. mexicans will begin to treat each other with the same contempt... our women will be raped and butchered and buried in pieces in the desert."
*translated from the spanish by samantha schnee (words without borders)
**boullosa's texas is the inaugural release from deep vellum, a promising, non-profit publisher of literary translation based in dallas.
January 1, 2025
In 1821, at the end of its war of independence, Mexico declared Texas part of its territory, although immigrants were still encouraged to lease land and cultivate the mostly uninhabited area. But revolution only brought fragile peace. The Mexican government prohibited slavery; the European and American settlers flouted these laws; slaves tried to escape across the Mexican border; American slave-hunters raided, captured and resold them. Ethnically, religiously, culturally, the area of Texas was a contested zone. In 1835, Texan residents declared independence, in 1846 they joined the United States, and in 1848 the American army invaded and annexed the land as far south as the Rio Grande (the Mexicans, however, called it by the Rio Bravo). Carmen Boullosa's novel is set in the aftermath of these upheavals and revolves around the historical figure of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, a Mexican-borne landholder on the cusp of the Rio Bravo. Nepomuceno had assumed American citizenship when Texas was amalgamated into the US, hoping to retain his family property, but then instigated battles against the white American authorities to try to preserve his hereditary lands.
The core narrative plot of Carmen Boullosa's novel is simple: one day the sheriff of Bruneville, Shears, insults Nepomuceno ("Shut up, you dirty greaser"). It's a petty calumny that quickly spreads by gossip throughout the town and the neighboring area. While Nepomuceno ignores the comment for the moment, he is incensed shortly afterwards when he finds Sheriff Shears beating his friend, Lázaro, and he decides to intervene. He makes a brief joke ("Arise and walk, Lázaro") and then shoots Shears in the leg, escaping on a stolen wagon and dropping a bag of oranges. From there the conflict escalates. Nepomuceno gathers his men, Shears calls in the federal government, soldiers are deployed, bandits are corralled, and a personal feud between two men turns into an invasion and occupation. Horse-thieves are slaughtered and boats are stolen. Nepomuceno makes alliances with the local Yamparik tribes, evades the local Mexican government, infiltrates the Texan town and then, after an anticlimactic and irresolute outcome, leaves. Some people call Nepomuceno a "Robin Hood" but Boullosa's story repudiates such a simplistic fabulization. Nepomuceno is a Protean mystery: Mexican and American, revolutionary and mercantile, a savior, a raider, a grifter. He has principles but only when they serve his mercurial agenda. He fought against slavery and would go on to serve in the Confederate army.
Although Nepomuceno is the center of this story, he is not really the protagonist. As soon as Shears insults Nepomuceno, the narrative frame broadens out to introduce the two-hundred inhabitants of the town and how they heard the story: the Texan ranchers, the Mexican vaqueros, a Maronite fabric seller, a Polish laundress, an Austrian swindler, a narcoleptic priest, a cruel minister (ominously named "Fear"), a black slave-owning landholder (jokingly named Tim Black by a town official), a Spanish cook, a captive Christian-raised Indian maidservant named Moonbeam, some English stevedores, a German doctor, a pioneer named King, a cross-dressing actress (alternately named Sarah and Soro). The story flits between these characters' lives and, intermittently, through their gossiping conversations and intrigues, the story of Nepomuceno filters through. In her confounding cascade of characters, Boullosa doesn't try to narrate the historical events of Nepomuceno's small insurrection nor try to mythologize him as some defender of Mexican independence.It's not a heroic tale of a Mexican uprising against American occupation. Instead Boullosa turns the political into the personal, tearing up a ready-made national mythos and imaginatively piecing together the eccentric lives of those who lived through history.
It's post-colonial Mexico but colonization is still only a recent event: Bruneville has only existed for eleven years; its mother-town is celebrating 85 years as a Christian city, and the axes of conflict are constantly shifting: there is precarious peace between the settlers and the Indians, simmering sectarian tension between the Catholics and Protestants, outright racial confrontations between the gringos and non-whites, and open hostilities between Mexican workers (many horse-groomers) and the American landowners (who stole their land). While Texas has declared independence, Bruneville, located right on the river-edge of the new state, still has the liminal status of a colonial outpost. It's a cosmopolitan city not yet nationalized—a cross-roads where European, American and Mexican settlers meet (there is even one Chinese resident) and the distinction between American and Mexican itself is fuzzy. Racial lineages and nationalities are obscure and fantastical. There is a white Indian boy and there is the stolen descendent of a dutch aristocracy. There are English-named muleteers who only speak Spanish. Categories are hard to pin down in this world. When the maidservant Moonbeam is shot in the chaos of the evening invasion, the town is unsure where to bury her: she was baptized Christian and died defending Texas but she was still Indian-borne; they initially decide to bury her in the Negro cemetery but then determine that this would not be a suitable honor; they would have decided on a Christian burial site but the mayor objected that this would not "maintain the appearances and civilized society"—so they bury her body in a hole without a coffin. It's a tragic side-note in the story that highlights the tenuous currency of those prized labels (Christian, Texan, American, free—they are all just verbal mirages). Nepomuceno himself is an American and a Texan but the white pastoralists will only ever consider him a Mexican greaser.
Boullosa's novel belies the fictive simplicity of Mexican-American history. Who is Mexican? Who is American? What exactly are the boundaries of Texas? Where is "civilization"? Who is the "colonizer" in these contested settlement lands? It's a dizzying narrative that puts prosopography before national myth-making, imagining the various individuals inhabiting the borderlands rather than the abstract nation-states of Mexico and America.
The core narrative plot of Carmen Boullosa's novel is simple: one day the sheriff of Bruneville, Shears, insults Nepomuceno ("Shut up, you dirty greaser"). It's a petty calumny that quickly spreads by gossip throughout the town and the neighboring area. While Nepomuceno ignores the comment for the moment, he is incensed shortly afterwards when he finds Sheriff Shears beating his friend, Lázaro, and he decides to intervene. He makes a brief joke ("Arise and walk, Lázaro") and then shoots Shears in the leg, escaping on a stolen wagon and dropping a bag of oranges. From there the conflict escalates. Nepomuceno gathers his men, Shears calls in the federal government, soldiers are deployed, bandits are corralled, and a personal feud between two men turns into an invasion and occupation. Horse-thieves are slaughtered and boats are stolen. Nepomuceno makes alliances with the local Yamparik tribes, evades the local Mexican government, infiltrates the Texan town and then, after an anticlimactic and irresolute outcome, leaves. Some people call Nepomuceno a "Robin Hood" but Boullosa's story repudiates such a simplistic fabulization. Nepomuceno is a Protean mystery: Mexican and American, revolutionary and mercantile, a savior, a raider, a grifter. He has principles but only when they serve his mercurial agenda. He fought against slavery and would go on to serve in the Confederate army.
Although Nepomuceno is the center of this story, he is not really the protagonist. As soon as Shears insults Nepomuceno, the narrative frame broadens out to introduce the two-hundred inhabitants of the town and how they heard the story: the Texan ranchers, the Mexican vaqueros, a Maronite fabric seller, a Polish laundress, an Austrian swindler, a narcoleptic priest, a cruel minister (ominously named "Fear"), a black slave-owning landholder (jokingly named Tim Black by a town official), a Spanish cook, a captive Christian-raised Indian maidservant named Moonbeam, some English stevedores, a German doctor, a pioneer named King, a cross-dressing actress (alternately named Sarah and Soro). The story flits between these characters' lives and, intermittently, through their gossiping conversations and intrigues, the story of Nepomuceno filters through. In her confounding cascade of characters, Boullosa doesn't try to narrate the historical events of Nepomuceno's small insurrection nor try to mythologize him as some defender of Mexican independence.It's not a heroic tale of a Mexican uprising against American occupation. Instead Boullosa turns the political into the personal, tearing up a ready-made national mythos and imaginatively piecing together the eccentric lives of those who lived through history.
It's post-colonial Mexico but colonization is still only a recent event: Bruneville has only existed for eleven years; its mother-town is celebrating 85 years as a Christian city, and the axes of conflict are constantly shifting: there is precarious peace between the settlers and the Indians, simmering sectarian tension between the Catholics and Protestants, outright racial confrontations between the gringos and non-whites, and open hostilities between Mexican workers (many horse-groomers) and the American landowners (who stole their land). While Texas has declared independence, Bruneville, located right on the river-edge of the new state, still has the liminal status of a colonial outpost. It's a cosmopolitan city not yet nationalized—a cross-roads where European, American and Mexican settlers meet (there is even one Chinese resident) and the distinction between American and Mexican itself is fuzzy. Racial lineages and nationalities are obscure and fantastical. There is a white Indian boy and there is the stolen descendent of a dutch aristocracy. There are English-named muleteers who only speak Spanish. Categories are hard to pin down in this world. When the maidservant Moonbeam is shot in the chaos of the evening invasion, the town is unsure where to bury her: she was baptized Christian and died defending Texas but she was still Indian-borne; they initially decide to bury her in the Negro cemetery but then determine that this would not be a suitable honor; they would have decided on a Christian burial site but the mayor objected that this would not "maintain the appearances and civilized society"—so they bury her body in a hole without a coffin. It's a tragic side-note in the story that highlights the tenuous currency of those prized labels (Christian, Texan, American, free—they are all just verbal mirages). Nepomuceno himself is an American and a Texan but the white pastoralists will only ever consider him a Mexican greaser.
Boullosa's novel belies the fictive simplicity of Mexican-American history. Who is Mexican? Who is American? What exactly are the boundaries of Texas? Where is "civilization"? Who is the "colonizer" in these contested settlement lands? It's a dizzying narrative that puts prosopography before national myth-making, imagining the various individuals inhabiting the borderlands rather than the abstract nation-states of Mexico and America.
April 8, 2013
Le pondría 2.5 estrellas mas no existe esta opción. Pocas veces soy tan duro con un libro en su reseña pero debo confesar que realmente no me gustó. En general se me hace pretencioso y siento que no hay una línea narrativa clara durante toda la obra. Si bien es cierto que el tema es fascinante y siento retrata de manera muy efectiva la situación social de la época, en especial el sistema esclavista del que inclusive los mismos Texanos han decidido ignorar de sus libros de historia, la autora falla en desarrollar un personaje. En mi opinión personal es una verborrea de incontables personajes a los que nunca llegas a conocer ni mucho menos a entender. Existían tantas posibilidades de desarrollar personajes que resultaban atractivos, que por seguir un estilo que no es de mi agrado, nunca llegas a engancharte con alguno.
Si bien, todo esto es percepción mía y quizá otras personas realmente les agrade la obra, yo nunca llegué a conocer a Don Nepomuceno y por lo tanto a preocuparme por su destino.
Si bien, todo esto es percepción mía y quizá otras personas realmente les agrade la obra, yo nunca llegué a conocer a Don Nepomuceno y por lo tanto a preocuparme por su destino.
June 7, 2015
learn how texicans expand their might and power in 1859 border region of brownsville/matamoros
funny, disgusting, full of intrigue and power plays, a good way to get your history lessons/lesions
funny, disgusting, full of intrigue and power plays, a good way to get your history lessons/lesions
May 26, 2015
‘Texas: The Great Theft’ begins with a straightforwardly told encounter: the Sheriff of Bruneville (a small town on the Texan-Mexican border) ‘spits five words at Don Nepomuceno:
“Shut up, you dirty greaser.”’
The story is set in 1859, at the time of the Mexican-American border wars, and this encounter is the spark that lights the tinderbox of north-south relations. We follow the news as it spreads around town, and its consequences begin to unfurl, moving with it from one house or market stand to the next, and as we go we meet a varied cast of characters. Almost everyone in Bruneville, and a goodly chunk of the population of its Mexican ‘sister town’, Matasanchez, has their part to play in this story, be they an errand boy, a baker or a vacquero (cowboy). As the word spreads, we prepare for a revolt, and clear lines are drawn through Bruneville’s society.
The story is told through an omniscient narrator who whirls us from place to place and person to person, unfurling the inner workings of the town. No-one’s secret thoughts are safe. We learn about incest and abuse, about cowardice and violence, dreams of escape and dreams of power. Through it all the narrator builds a sense of urgency, using the short stay with each character to convey the passing of time, repeatedly telling us that there is more to share about an individual or a piece of gossip, but that we are out of time, we must move on to the next place and the next character, following the news as it spreads; or, conversely, allowing longer digressions to fill in background as the pace of events slows down. It’s cleverly done.
The sly humour and the power of the language do a good job of alleviating the weight of a period of history characterized by racism and brutality, and Boullosa has carefully counterweighted the dominant racism of the nascent Americans against the Mexicans by displaying the similar historic prejudice of the Mexicans against the native Indians – the story of dispossession has played out on these lands before. And even the Indians are not romanticized, as is made clear in their harsh life, violence, and treatment of women. This is not a morality tale, and there are no clear heroes. Instead there is a gritty, messy, eminently readable story of a period in history that many would prefer to imagine is more clear cut. This was the first book from new publishing house Deep Vellum, and it’s my first read from them. Judging by this, I’m expecting great things!
Full review available at http://goodbyetoallthis.com/texas-the...
November 18, 2013
Es una de las novelas más accesible y divertidas de Boullosa. Toma como ingredientes los hechos históricos pero tiene una manera tan maestra de combinarlos con la ficción que el resultado es muy gratificante. Hoy en día da miedo invocar a La Imaginación. Hoy en día todo tiene que ser trágico y "real" para considerarse serio. No es así. La literatura, alta literatura de Boullosa transplanta la historia a su propio planeta. Y su planeta literario es rico en Historia y Ficción. Esto es un ejemplo de que la literatura tiene que ser creativa. Por supuesto que existen muy buenos libros que copian o retratan la realidad con maestría. Carmen Boullosa no la ignora, no recrea sino que Crea su mundo.
En particular, Texas, va a galope, no paras. Yo no paré de reír. Y tiene personajes maravillosos. Me parece que lo que ha creado polémica es el final y esa sensación de querer saber más de los personajes. Aquí otra cosa que disfruté de la novela: me parece que para Boullosa no es necesario llevarnos de la mano hacia el final pues se intuye. Boullosa descabalga de un salto a punto de llegar al final y nos deja ahí. Ya sabremos nosotros si lo gozamos o nos quedamos frustrados. Es fácil leerla pero no es fácil leerla. Se tiene que permitir el lector entrar a su planeta. y si tan solo se disfruta del viaje y el paisaje, de verdad queda uno con una sonrisa grata.
En particular, Texas, va a galope, no paras. Yo no paré de reír. Y tiene personajes maravillosos. Me parece que lo que ha creado polémica es el final y esa sensación de querer saber más de los personajes. Aquí otra cosa que disfruté de la novela: me parece que para Boullosa no es necesario llevarnos de la mano hacia el final pues se intuye. Boullosa descabalga de un salto a punto de llegar al final y nos deja ahí. Ya sabremos nosotros si lo gozamos o nos quedamos frustrados. Es fácil leerla pero no es fácil leerla. Se tiene que permitir el lector entrar a su planeta. y si tan solo se disfruta del viaje y el paisaje, de verdad queda uno con una sonrisa grata.
January 2, 2017
I'm a huge fan of Deep Vellum Publishing. Its books and its mission are both top shelf. Having said that, this book just doesn't work for me. Too much stage-setting, not enough story-telling. I'm not sure if it's a good story told in a manner too clever by half or simply not a good story, but either way it doesn't grab the reader the way most Deep Vellum and other good books do.
July 5, 2016
Like the GTA 4 trailer said, might is right
December 2, 2014
Texas: the Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa
Translated from the Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Deep Vellum Publishing
978-1-941920-00-8
$15.95, 285 pgs
Once upon a time in Texas, there was a man perturbed, even aghast, by the rarity of contemporary translations of literature in this country. Thus was born Deep Vellum Publishing. Deep Vellum, based in Dallas, released its first title today. Woo hoo! Congratulations all around. And what a debut it is: Texas: the Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa, translated from the Spanish by Texan Samantha Schnee of Words Without Borders fame. Her translation from the Spanish is inspired: chatty, cleverly colloquial and full of energy.
One day in 1859 in the Texas town of Bruneville (aka Brownsville), Don Nepomuceno witnesses the local sheriff pistol-whipping a drunken vaquero in the town square. When Nepomuceno confronts the sheriff, the sheriff insults him, “Shut up, you dirty greaser.” The news of this insult spreads rapidly along both banks of the Rio Grande/Bravo via what resembles a giant game of telephone, assisted by messenger pigeon and lightning bolt. The town is of two minds about this. On the one hand, “How could a puffed up carpenter dare speak that way to Don Nepomuceno, Doña Estefanía’s son, the grandson and great-grandson of the owners of more than a thousand acres, including those on which Bruneville sits?!” And on the other hand, “Nepomuceno, that no-good, goddamned, cattle-thieving, red-headed bandit, he can rot in hell for all I care!” Shots ring out. The sheriff is wounded and Nepomuceno, taking the old vaquero with him, escapes across the river to Matasánchez, Mexico (aka Matamoros) where he proceeds to make plans for an invasion of Texas.
Boullosa has taken an incident from the fraught and bloody history of Texan/Mexican/American relations and woven a generous tale full of magic and the all-too-human, reminiscent of Revolt by Qaisra Sharaz and John Nichols’ The Milagro Beanfield War. The cast of characters in the two towns are a motley and varied crew, representative of the actual historical residents of the region (I swear – look it up): Mexicans, Texans, Native Americans, socialist Germans, escaped slaves, a commune of a dozen Amazons (yes, you read that correctly), Cubans, Russians, Irishmen, ghosts, espionage agents, agents provocateurs, mystics and one philosopher-baker.
Texas is a delight, packed with sly wit, word-play and sharp observation. The omniscient narrator regularly addresses the reader directly, as actors will address the camera and speak to the audience, poking a sharp stick at absurdity with a deadpan delivery that had me laughing aloud. For instance, when describing the locals, "…two madmen (Connecticut, who only says “I’m from Connecticut,” and the Scot, who says lots but in his country’s strange accent it’s impossible to understand, which is just as well, because his babbling is full of obscenities),…" And this, "Jones never stops for Father Vera, he’s not stupid and he knows that the priest dislikes him and thinks he’s a heretic because he’s read the whole Bible from cover to cover several times (proof to the priest that Jones is a damned Protestant)."
There are doses of the magic realism for which Mexican literature is famous. For instance, the local mystic is hailed by a fence post:
“Psst, Iluminado!”
El Iluminado thinks the voice is coming from the ruined fence…
“I’m going to help you. Make me your cross and I will speak the Word to all.”
The voice is sharp and childish, no one would believe it’s coming from this old piece of wood.
Without asking anyone’s permission El Iluminado yanks up the talking board…
“That’s right! Well done! Now nail the board next to me, crosswise.”
“What nails should I use?”
“We’re going to get some at the store.”
“I don’t have any money, and Señor Bartolo doesn’t give credit.”
“I’ll talk to him. Let’s go!”
The results of the talking cross? “The line that beggars and believers have formed to bless themselves with the holy water where the (miraculous) Talking Cross was dunked snakes all the way to the Town Hall.”
Boullosa is also skilled at the quirkily pastoral, “Although it’s nearly settled, they won’t announce it until dawn, after a nightlong vigil discussing the matter in darkness, to the hooting of owls, the dreaming of foxes, the nighttime wiggling of fish.” She infuses even a description of the spies passing messages with her unique style, “In passing, they utter phrases to balconies that appear to be empty. In the confessionals, they confess sins that aren’t sins, and their confessors aren’t priests. The barber repeats them in the middle of conversations, like non sequiturs. Lovers say things that aren’t at all loving.”
Texas, despite the subject matter, is not a plot-driven thriller. It doesn’t move quickly – if you’re looking for a lot of battle action then you should look elsewhere. What Texas has are characters and language; history that continues to impact Texas and Mexico that we might otherwise prefer to avoid; and an intelligent and stylish delivery that points out the abundant absurdities and hypocrisies. This book is to be savored, not gulped. Texas will reward your patience. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is all fun and games. I’ve dwelt on the humor and magic in this review because they are the unique and most impressive qualities. People die here and swing like strange fruit; people lose their land, homes, families, livelihoods and traditional ways of living and these sins haunt us still in news headlines daily.
I will leave you with a prophecy from the philosopher-baker:
“If we don’t get rid of them, before we know it they’ll pass a law preventing us from working on the other side of the Río Bravo…the worst is still to come. They’ll put up a fence or build a wall so we can’t cross over to ‘their’ Texas…and then, you’ll see, listen closely, they’ll take the water from our river, they’ll divert it for their own purposes,…there won’t be a single mustang or plot of land they don’t claim as theirs. South of the Río Bravo will become violent. Mexicans will begin to treat each other with the same contempt…Our women will be raped and butchered and buried in pieces in the desert.”
“Go and drink your chocolate, Óscar, you’re talking nonsense.”
¡Viva la Raza!
Translated from the Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Deep Vellum Publishing
978-1-941920-00-8
$15.95, 285 pgs
Once upon a time in Texas, there was a man perturbed, even aghast, by the rarity of contemporary translations of literature in this country. Thus was born Deep Vellum Publishing. Deep Vellum, based in Dallas, released its first title today. Woo hoo! Congratulations all around. And what a debut it is: Texas: the Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa, translated from the Spanish by Texan Samantha Schnee of Words Without Borders fame. Her translation from the Spanish is inspired: chatty, cleverly colloquial and full of energy.
One day in 1859 in the Texas town of Bruneville (aka Brownsville), Don Nepomuceno witnesses the local sheriff pistol-whipping a drunken vaquero in the town square. When Nepomuceno confronts the sheriff, the sheriff insults him, “Shut up, you dirty greaser.” The news of this insult spreads rapidly along both banks of the Rio Grande/Bravo via what resembles a giant game of telephone, assisted by messenger pigeon and lightning bolt. The town is of two minds about this. On the one hand, “How could a puffed up carpenter dare speak that way to Don Nepomuceno, Doña Estefanía’s son, the grandson and great-grandson of the owners of more than a thousand acres, including those on which Bruneville sits?!” And on the other hand, “Nepomuceno, that no-good, goddamned, cattle-thieving, red-headed bandit, he can rot in hell for all I care!” Shots ring out. The sheriff is wounded and Nepomuceno, taking the old vaquero with him, escapes across the river to Matasánchez, Mexico (aka Matamoros) where he proceeds to make plans for an invasion of Texas.
Boullosa has taken an incident from the fraught and bloody history of Texan/Mexican/American relations and woven a generous tale full of magic and the all-too-human, reminiscent of Revolt by Qaisra Sharaz and John Nichols’ The Milagro Beanfield War. The cast of characters in the two towns are a motley and varied crew, representative of the actual historical residents of the region (I swear – look it up): Mexicans, Texans, Native Americans, socialist Germans, escaped slaves, a commune of a dozen Amazons (yes, you read that correctly), Cubans, Russians, Irishmen, ghosts, espionage agents, agents provocateurs, mystics and one philosopher-baker.
Texas is a delight, packed with sly wit, word-play and sharp observation. The omniscient narrator regularly addresses the reader directly, as actors will address the camera and speak to the audience, poking a sharp stick at absurdity with a deadpan delivery that had me laughing aloud. For instance, when describing the locals, "…two madmen (Connecticut, who only says “I’m from Connecticut,” and the Scot, who says lots but in his country’s strange accent it’s impossible to understand, which is just as well, because his babbling is full of obscenities),…" And this, "Jones never stops for Father Vera, he’s not stupid and he knows that the priest dislikes him and thinks he’s a heretic because he’s read the whole Bible from cover to cover several times (proof to the priest that Jones is a damned Protestant)."
There are doses of the magic realism for which Mexican literature is famous. For instance, the local mystic is hailed by a fence post:
“Psst, Iluminado!”
El Iluminado thinks the voice is coming from the ruined fence…
“I’m going to help you. Make me your cross and I will speak the Word to all.”
The voice is sharp and childish, no one would believe it’s coming from this old piece of wood.
Without asking anyone’s permission El Iluminado yanks up the talking board…
“That’s right! Well done! Now nail the board next to me, crosswise.”
“What nails should I use?”
“We’re going to get some at the store.”
“I don’t have any money, and Señor Bartolo doesn’t give credit.”
“I’ll talk to him. Let’s go!”
The results of the talking cross? “The line that beggars and believers have formed to bless themselves with the holy water where the (miraculous) Talking Cross was dunked snakes all the way to the Town Hall.”
Boullosa is also skilled at the quirkily pastoral, “Although it’s nearly settled, they won’t announce it until dawn, after a nightlong vigil discussing the matter in darkness, to the hooting of owls, the dreaming of foxes, the nighttime wiggling of fish.” She infuses even a description of the spies passing messages with her unique style, “In passing, they utter phrases to balconies that appear to be empty. In the confessionals, they confess sins that aren’t sins, and their confessors aren’t priests. The barber repeats them in the middle of conversations, like non sequiturs. Lovers say things that aren’t at all loving.”
Texas, despite the subject matter, is not a plot-driven thriller. It doesn’t move quickly – if you’re looking for a lot of battle action then you should look elsewhere. What Texas has are characters and language; history that continues to impact Texas and Mexico that we might otherwise prefer to avoid; and an intelligent and stylish delivery that points out the abundant absurdities and hypocrisies. This book is to be savored, not gulped. Texas will reward your patience. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is all fun and games. I’ve dwelt on the humor and magic in this review because they are the unique and most impressive qualities. People die here and swing like strange fruit; people lose their land, homes, families, livelihoods and traditional ways of living and these sins haunt us still in news headlines daily.
I will leave you with a prophecy from the philosopher-baker:
“If we don’t get rid of them, before we know it they’ll pass a law preventing us from working on the other side of the Río Bravo…the worst is still to come. They’ll put up a fence or build a wall so we can’t cross over to ‘their’ Texas…and then, you’ll see, listen closely, they’ll take the water from our river, they’ll divert it for their own purposes,…there won’t be a single mustang or plot of land they don’t claim as theirs. South of the Río Bravo will become violent. Mexicans will begin to treat each other with the same contempt…Our women will be raped and butchered and buried in pieces in the desert.”
“Go and drink your chocolate, Óscar, you’re talking nonsense.”
¡Viva la Raza!
April 18, 2023
This book feels like going to a party with a fever, it was so uniquely dream like. Someone in class said it feels like when someone tries to tell you a dream they had and you just can’t keep up with them and that is the perfect way to describe it. There is a lot going on, the amount of characters is ridiculous but it really elevated the story in terms of the gossip narrative. I overall loved it! I was giggling up a storm then the next page would be so disgusted. Ultimately Texans suck and I can confirm.
Also quite interesting how practically everything we know of the main character is heresay. Added a fun element of do we like him? Who’s opinion do we trust? I love him, but people in class disagree.
Also quite interesting how practically everything we know of the main character is heresay. Added a fun element of do we like him? Who’s opinion do we trust? I love him, but people in class disagree.
March 30, 2025
There are so many characters in this book! Like a borderline comical amount - you’re meeting a new person (sometimes multiple) on every page. I kept thinking to myself that I wished there was one of those lists of characters and their relationship to each other at the beginning of the book for me to reference. That said the many character thing really did add to this gossip / game of telephone energy surrounding the big drama of the book. There is a singular event that we are reading around for the whole book and hearing everyone in the town’s take on it is really conceptually interesting. I did like the book but felt myself getting bogged down often with the amount of characters.
July 24, 2019
so many characters! the action was fun when it was flowing, but when it wasn't flowing it was too weighed down by how awful the texas borderlands have always been.
July 8, 2025
2.5 stars
November 27, 2022
i liked this book wayyyy more than i thought i would. i read it in one day over the course of several hours. it keeps you on your toes. i never really figured out who all the characters were, but still enjoyed it nonetheless. it reminded me of some of the plays i’ve read in ap spanish lit.
November 17, 2025
3.25/3.5 I’m left unsure of how I feel about this book. For the first 20 pages, I was confused and worried I would struggle the entire book. At this point, I decided to lean into the loose structure and just take what I could; and, up until around page 70/75, I was engrossed in the interconnectedness. I truly respect the author for producing a type of structure I don’t think I’ve encountered in a book before; it was impressive just how many people were brought into the fold, and the interweaving of all their stories. I also believe when you are playing with structure in this way, there are sacrifices made in other arenas, which I can sort of hold in lieu of something unique. However, in getting into the second half of the book, that dynamic storytelling became confusing, particularly when the plot picked up and I realized I didn’t know who characters were anymore. I do wonder how I would have felt if I could have read all of this in one or two sittings, as spacing it out over chunks exacerbated the issue.
April 7, 2017
A totally different sort of reading experience. Just go with the flow, don't try to remember who all the characters are. It was helpful to read some about the book. A very interesting perspective from the Mexican point of view.
Read
April 30, 2013"Through the intricate plot and multitude of characters, both principal and peripheral, Carmen Boullosa’s novel Texas seems to score a direct hit... Yet the plot tends to get lost in the central plains of her novel, which detracts from a satisfying reading experience." - Janet Mary Livesey, University of Oklahoma
This book was reviewed in the May 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/ZwBisa
This book was reviewed in the May 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/ZwBisa
April 5, 2013
A remarkable book that tells the so hidden truth of American expansion in the west through her eyes and words. A must read.
June 27, 2022
Written in several voices and with constant verbal invention, but often in a breathless frontier chismeo with the subordinating ques removed, I haven't read anything like this in Spanish before. In some ways Boullosa's Texas masterpiece is more difficult than 2666, though it's almost a quarter of the latter's length.
Boullosa, who admits in the end that the book is full of homages, seems to draw her choice of words from everywhere up to and including her own familiar journalistic/poetic swing, to self-consciously direct-translated gringuismos (including the subtle but detectable Western film references, where hatred toward Mexicans is most needed), to original morphosyntactic derivations that totally go according to the grammar but feel like she made them up rather than check the thesaurus, like her sadly departed contemporary Lemebel would do, and her sadly departed contemporary Bolaño never really got around to. And of course her existentially-terrifying catalogue of the sensations of fruits and spices and cooking, and bothering to name Mexican stuff for the benefit of the world, like Almodóvar puts a piece of Spain in all his stuff, but more tenderly and connected to the land.
Not to compare them at all but I love all three of the latter writers, yet the more I read Boullosa, the madder I get at the gringo marketers who oversell Bolaño (who rules, but not like white man wants us to think he does) and who criminally under-rate Boullosa, not to speak at all of Lemebel. Why is Boullosa a better writer than Bolaño? Simple, she didn't die twenty years ago, she's had time to get awesome. Go fight over that, Goodreads aesthetes!
My only thing with this book is that there are so so many characters, which is how the book functions, but as a reflex I picked which ones I liked and my favorites don't come back around too much in the book. There is kinda the inner circle of key characters and the outer community. Each gets their vignette, but I wouldn't put it past Boullosa to set up a dramatic character arc and then slap us down with the reminder that these characters have been lost to history.
The book gets two things super-right: 1. it always reminds us that borders cross us, and not the other way around, in its portrayal of how many Mexicans with US citizenship have to flee from the climax's chaos; how German immigrants just want to live on whichever side isn't full of psychopaths; and how all mortal enemies rely on their one way over a river, and 2. it never forgets the Native people stuck in the middle nor portrays either side of the Texas conflict as particularly deserving of the fastidious and wild land, via her usual satire, thereby replacing any common us-vs-them historiographic dispute with a dignified deep reading of the land's history decorated by satire and some truly beautiful images, such as the nocturnal river with bands singing on both sides to Nepomuceno.
One of the few writers who's still chipping away at improving Faulkner, right up there with Donoso. Supremely recommended, and read it in Spanish, dang it.
Boullosa, who admits in the end that the book is full of homages, seems to draw her choice of words from everywhere up to and including her own familiar journalistic/poetic swing, to self-consciously direct-translated gringuismos (including the subtle but detectable Western film references, where hatred toward Mexicans is most needed), to original morphosyntactic derivations that totally go according to the grammar but feel like she made them up rather than check the thesaurus, like her sadly departed contemporary Lemebel would do, and her sadly departed contemporary Bolaño never really got around to. And of course her existentially-terrifying catalogue of the sensations of fruits and spices and cooking, and bothering to name Mexican stuff for the benefit of the world, like Almodóvar puts a piece of Spain in all his stuff, but more tenderly and connected to the land.
Not to compare them at all but I love all three of the latter writers, yet the more I read Boullosa, the madder I get at the gringo marketers who oversell Bolaño (who rules, but not like white man wants us to think he does) and who criminally under-rate Boullosa, not to speak at all of Lemebel. Why is Boullosa a better writer than Bolaño? Simple, she didn't die twenty years ago, she's had time to get awesome. Go fight over that, Goodreads aesthetes!
My only thing with this book is that there are so so many characters, which is how the book functions, but as a reflex I picked which ones I liked and my favorites don't come back around too much in the book. There is kinda the inner circle of key characters and the outer community. Each gets their vignette, but I wouldn't put it past Boullosa to set up a dramatic character arc and then slap us down with the reminder that these characters have been lost to history.
The book gets two things super-right: 1. it always reminds us that borders cross us, and not the other way around, in its portrayal of how many Mexicans with US citizenship have to flee from the climax's chaos; how German immigrants just want to live on whichever side isn't full of psychopaths; and how all mortal enemies rely on their one way over a river, and 2. it never forgets the Native people stuck in the middle nor portrays either side of the Texas conflict as particularly deserving of the fastidious and wild land, via her usual satire, thereby replacing any common us-vs-them historiographic dispute with a dignified deep reading of the land's history decorated by satire and some truly beautiful images, such as the nocturnal river with bands singing on both sides to Nepomuceno.
One of the few writers who's still chipping away at improving Faulkner, right up there with Donoso. Supremely recommended, and read it in Spanish, dang it.
November 4, 2024
Judge Gold hurls the sheriff’s words at Sabas and Refugio, thinking to himself, Now they won’t be able to pay me for who knows how long, but at least I have the pleasure of delivering the bad news. [...] Nat, overhearing this interchange, rushes off to the Market Square to check out what’s happening with Nepomuceno and Shears. [...] Glevack, arriving from Mrs. Big’s Café, is about to approach Sabas and Refugio, but stops abruptly and turns—he sees his chance to speak with Judge Gold. A few seconds later Olga, a laundress who occasionally works for Doña Estefanía, approaches the brothers...
This passage serves as a microcosm of Boullosa’s broader narrative strategy, where the absence of chapter breaks and the winding, interconnected, way-too-many characters storytelling reflect the chaotic, real-time nature of history as it unfolds, illustrating an incredibly authentic society that is both rich and fractured—everyone knows a little about everyone else, yet true understanding remains elusive. The emphasis is not merely on the events themselves but on how they resonate through the community. As these characters emerge and recede, with the help of the Corrido-style narrator (ahh, Romantic authorship!), their stories intertwine in such a swirling manner that reflects the gossip/chisme/rumors circulating among the townspeople; highlighting how history (naturally centered upon very American™ issues of land, identity, and power) is shaped by individual perspectives and experiences shaping the collective experience rather than a singular narrative arc, challenging the notion of a singular, objective truth. As these events of personal ambitions, cultural tensions, and historical grievances unfold, the panoptic lack of formal breaks and clear characters reinforces the sense that history is not a series of neatly packaged chapters, as we get in our history books, but rather a chaotic, interconnected web of lives and stories. And, yet again, these fragmented narratives reveal the multifaceted nature of history and identity, insofar as personal biases and societal contexts shape their interpretations of events. Therein, as readers, we are actively engaged, thrown in the midst without much distance, to the unfolding drama of a turbulent historical moment and the uncomfortable realities of the past, and one not oft told in Texas history classes (if ever).
Buckle up, it's a wild ride!
December 4, 2020
This novel was so cool! Boullosa takes a plot from history -- the folk hero, a wealthy Mexican landowner's son named Nepomuceno, defends a drunken cowboy from the incompetent gringo sheriff. The sheriff insults Nepomuceno, calling him "a dirty greaser," shots are fired, and Nepomuceno shoots the sheriff.
The first 50 pages are the author nimbly charting the passage of this news through the community, as servants tell masters tell wives tell friends tell errand boys tell fishermen, etc. The effect is both gossipy and also a people's history. Boullosa holds the enormous complexity of each of the character's points of view. We are inside each character's head as they evaluate how they feel about Nepomuceno, the vaquero, and the sheriff and what they stand to lose or gain from a war between the two factions. The narrator describes herself as a "busybody." We learn who is fucking whom and who has an upset stomach alongside learning who is benefitting from the gringos slowly stealing land across Mexico. Boullosa represents how various native tribes, the gringos, Mexicans of all social classes, children and adults, men and women, all hold various opinions of what's going on. The narrator is very matter-of-fact: she shares who has raped and who has been raped, and then the story moves on.
This is a fantastic way to learn the multiplicities of fictionalized history. However, it's a LOT to keep in one's mind. I was reading this before bed and got really confused.
The first 50 pages are the author nimbly charting the passage of this news through the community, as servants tell masters tell wives tell friends tell errand boys tell fishermen, etc. The effect is both gossipy and also a people's history. Boullosa holds the enormous complexity of each of the character's points of view. We are inside each character's head as they evaluate how they feel about Nepomuceno, the vaquero, and the sheriff and what they stand to lose or gain from a war between the two factions. The narrator describes herself as a "busybody." We learn who is fucking whom and who has an upset stomach alongside learning who is benefitting from the gringos slowly stealing land across Mexico. Boullosa represents how various native tribes, the gringos, Mexicans of all social classes, children and adults, men and women, all hold various opinions of what's going on. The narrator is very matter-of-fact: she shares who has raped and who has been raped, and then the story moves on.
This is a fantastic way to learn the multiplicities of fictionalized history. However, it's a LOT to keep in one's mind. I was reading this before bed and got really confused.
February 7, 2017
Really 2.5 - 2.75 ⭐️
I enjoyed the history, particularly the alternative perspective from what I learned in school, in Texas.
There were moments of beautiful, lyrical language -- is that Boullosa or the translator or a combination?
However, I never did settle into the story. The omniscient POV was, at times, useful and effective. Mostly though, the story felt disjointed due to all the switching between characters. SO many characters that I had to start over three times to try to keep it all straight. I finally gave up and just read through.
I liked the book well enough to try another Boullosa book.
I enjoyed the history, particularly the alternative perspective from what I learned in school, in Texas.
There were moments of beautiful, lyrical language -- is that Boullosa or the translator or a combination?
However, I never did settle into the story. The omniscient POV was, at times, useful and effective. Mostly though, the story felt disjointed due to all the switching between characters. SO many characters that I had to start over three times to try to keep it all straight. I finally gave up and just read through.
I liked the book well enough to try another Boullosa book.
March 26, 2020
An impressively meticulous set up fleshes out 100+ characters and the tensions boiling in the Rio Grande/Bravo valley in the 1850s through individual responses in the hours following a local altercation. The devastating final pages are the dominos finally falling. Incidentally, pairs well with something I read earlier this year: Tears of the Trufflepig, which tracks these same tensions into the near future, but explores them very differently.
February 16, 2025
It’s a good book, but unfortunately way too complicated for me. Many dozens of characters are introduced populating many different stories, each intertwined and centered around a piece of what was once northern Mexico and ends up a part of Texas. Boullosa jumps from one story to another, often on the same page. I just couldn’t keep track of who was who or remember each story line and finally gave up. The theme is clear: people are people, no matter their ethnicity, and all are miserable, selfish, murderous racists. Oh, and women are always oppressed. Too bad I couldn’t finish the book, as Bullosa is very funny. Maybe if I were younger and had better retention…
Read
December 9, 2019Ask even Texans if they’ve ever heard of the Cortina Wars, and you’re liable to get a lot of blank stares. At least outside of the Rio Grande Valley, where the tale lives on in some of the old corridos about the resistance ignited the day Cortina shot the sheriff. The story is loosely retold here by Carmen Boullosa. Asked in one interview what genre this book falls into, she calls it a corrido. And like a good corrido, it’s a worthy melody of justice, passion, revenge, love, violence, outlaws, and pain. Worth the read. (Also, yes, there are a ton of characters. Just roll with it).
May 1, 2022
Like many review points out, the storytelling here can be overwhelming with so many characters, jumping passages, and tangential breaks. But I think it makes for an unique read. This style also really brings the “feel” of a small border community. Everyone knows a little bit about everyone else but no one knows anything really about anyone. And everyone in the community plays some kind of role in momentous events.
Separately, I love the time period and location choice. Historical fiction of the Texas-Mexican border in the 1800s is rarely written about and made interesting here.
Separately, I love the time period and location choice. Historical fiction of the Texas-Mexican border in the 1800s is rarely written about and made interesting here.
February 15, 2025
I LOVED this book. I thought it was a fascinating way of working both with and in history, and especially as someone interested in how we construct history, how we write into history, and how we establish the historical archive, I was enraptured by this book. The storytelling was fantastic, the writing was beautiful, and it truly felt like the voices of all of the tias talking over each other and weaving together a story. SO good. I want to read it in Spanish now.
April 22, 2024
About 50 pages too long, this revisionist western (Tex-ern?) moves a little too slowly in places but captures a certain kind of mood that you don’t encounter much it contemporary literature- call it bemused contempt. Cormac McCarthy but 20% less bleak. (But still bleak!)
Boullosa hates Texas but doesn’t have a very high opinion of those that let it go! I’ll check out her other stuff.
Boullosa hates Texas but doesn’t have a very high opinion of those that let it go! I’ll check out her other stuff.
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