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Tijuana Straits
From Kem Nunn, the National Book Award-nominated author of Tapping the Source and The Dogs of Winter, comes an exquisitely written tale of loss and redemption. Nunn renders the dangerous beaches and waters of California's borderland as only the critically acclaimed poet laureate of surf noir can, and Tijuana Straits confirms his reputation as a master of suspense and a novelist of the first rank.
When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean -- a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting further entanglements but may be placing them both at risk. In this, he is not wrong.
An environmental activist, Magdalena has become engaged in the struggle for the health and rights of the thousands of peasants streaming from Mexico's enervated heartland to work in the maquilladoras -- the foreign-owned factories that line her country's border, polluting its air and fouling its rivers. It is a risky contest. Danger can come from many directions, from government officials paid to preserve the status quo to thugs hired to intimidate reformers.
As Magdalena and Fahey become closer, Magdalena tries to discover who is out to get her, attempting to reconstruct the events that delivered her, battered and confused, into Fahey's strange yet oddly seductive world. She examines every lead, never guessing the truth. For into this no-man's-land between two countries comes a trio of killers led by Armando Santoya, a man beset by personal tragedy, an aberration born of the very conditions Magdalena has dedicated her life to fight against, yet who in the throes of his own drug-fueled confusions has marked her for death. And so will Fahey be put to the test, in a final duel on the beaches of his Tijuana Straits.
When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean -- a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting further entanglements but may be placing them both at risk. In this, he is not wrong.
An environmental activist, Magdalena has become engaged in the struggle for the health and rights of the thousands of peasants streaming from Mexico's enervated heartland to work in the maquilladoras -- the foreign-owned factories that line her country's border, polluting its air and fouling its rivers. It is a risky contest. Danger can come from many directions, from government officials paid to preserve the status quo to thugs hired to intimidate reformers.
As Magdalena and Fahey become closer, Magdalena tries to discover who is out to get her, attempting to reconstruct the events that delivered her, battered and confused, into Fahey's strange yet oddly seductive world. She examines every lead, never guessing the truth. For into this no-man's-land between two countries comes a trio of killers led by Armando Santoya, a man beset by personal tragedy, an aberration born of the very conditions Magdalena has dedicated her life to fight against, yet who in the throes of his own drug-fueled confusions has marked her for death. And so will Fahey be put to the test, in a final duel on the beaches of his Tijuana Straits.
320 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 2004
62 people are currently reading
680 people want to read
About the author
Kem Nunn
13 books189 followersKem Nunn (born 1948) is an American fiction novelist, surfer, magazine and television writer from California. His novels have been described as "surf-noir" for their dark themes, political overtones and surf settings. He is the author of five novels, including his seminal surf novel Tapping the Source. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Irvine.
He has collaborated with producer David Milch on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood. Milch and Nunn co-created the HBO series John from Cincinnati, a surfing series set in Imperial Beach, California which premiered on June 10, 2007. He has also written for season 5 of Sons of Anarchy.
He has collaborated with producer David Milch on the HBO Western drama series Deadwood. Milch and Nunn co-created the HBO series John from Cincinnati, a surfing series set in Imperial Beach, California which premiered on June 10, 2007. He has also written for season 5 of Sons of Anarchy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
July 19, 2025
Once in a while (very rarely), the stars align and the disillusioned fan of crime fiction discovers a genuinely talented writer who rejected the elitist cabal that is literary fiction and ventured into the muddy waters of crime fiction. Norman Mailer and Graham Greene have occasionally muddied their feet. Kem Nunn is one such writer.
"The woman appeared with the first light, struggling across the dunes, a figure from the revelation." That is the first line in Tijuana Straits. I was hooked. Sam Fahey was once a talented surfer. Now he is out hunting wild dogs (he also runs a worm farm) on the dunes of Tijuana, when he saves Magdalena, who is an environmental activist on the run from assassins hired by foreign factory owners who have destroyed her country. Armando, an ex-boxer and factory employee, the sort of person for whom Magdalena is fighting for, is on Magdalena's trail. With him are two violent cohorts.
Nunn describes the fetid and devastated landscape of Tijuana and Mexico with the same cinematic grandeur of Francis Ford Coppola who filmed a destroyed Vietnam in Apocalypse Now. I was also reminded of a Jack Nicholson film called The Border. Tijuana Straits is very much a book of place. The rotting and desolate places ("the beaches they found littered with patches of foam and uprooted kelp and these arranged in positions that might have passed for bodies of the slain") described in the book are wastelands filled with factories to employ the weak, the defeated, the violent and the damaged and bars and whorehouses to keep them dulled.
Nunn uses vivid imagistic language to further intensify these epic scenes - "He had this way of holding his arms when he surfed, like a gull swooping across the face of the ocean" or "The valley was a labyrinth, a trick done with mirrors".
But then, why the 3 rating? Well, the novel was a case of the parts being better than the whole. The writing is brilliant, but it becomes kind of dull in the middle. The relationship between the criminal Fahey and the activist Magdalena is without much tension. The long chase sequence across the beach towards the end sort of made up for it. I intend to check out more of Kem Nunn's work. But they seem to be quite obscure and expensive.
"The woman appeared with the first light, struggling across the dunes, a figure from the revelation." That is the first line in Tijuana Straits. I was hooked. Sam Fahey was once a talented surfer. Now he is out hunting wild dogs (he also runs a worm farm) on the dunes of Tijuana, when he saves Magdalena, who is an environmental activist on the run from assassins hired by foreign factory owners who have destroyed her country. Armando, an ex-boxer and factory employee, the sort of person for whom Magdalena is fighting for, is on Magdalena's trail. With him are two violent cohorts.
Nunn describes the fetid and devastated landscape of Tijuana and Mexico with the same cinematic grandeur of Francis Ford Coppola who filmed a destroyed Vietnam in Apocalypse Now. I was also reminded of a Jack Nicholson film called The Border. Tijuana Straits is very much a book of place. The rotting and desolate places ("the beaches they found littered with patches of foam and uprooted kelp and these arranged in positions that might have passed for bodies of the slain") described in the book are wastelands filled with factories to employ the weak, the defeated, the violent and the damaged and bars and whorehouses to keep them dulled.
Nunn uses vivid imagistic language to further intensify these epic scenes - "He had this way of holding his arms when he surfed, like a gull swooping across the face of the ocean" or "The valley was a labyrinth, a trick done with mirrors".
But then, why the 3 rating? Well, the novel was a case of the parts being better than the whole. The writing is brilliant, but it becomes kind of dull in the middle. The relationship between the criminal Fahey and the activist Magdalena is without much tension. The long chase sequence across the beach towards the end sort of made up for it. I intend to check out more of Kem Nunn's work. But they seem to be quite obscure and expensive.
June 6, 2008
kem nunn's a cool motherfucker but this review's really a love letter to resident goodreads badass Donald Powell. yup.
i'm always on the lookout for great contemporary american crime fiction, for stuff that can stand up to the old guys. i've checked out all the big names -- connolly, leonard, pelecanos, price and all the other cats who write for the wire and, as much as i love the genre, i just can't really get into these guys. there's some good stuff, for sure, but nothing GREAT. nothing that spooks the shit outta you in the middle of the night, nothing that makes you happy when you have to crap so you can be alone with the book, nothing that gives you that thrillingly evil 'the world is a horrible place and we are a vile species' feeling...
well, none of 'em, save james ellroy. the one genre-busting genius-goddamn-writer who, in my opinion, bests all his elders and predecessors. and i was alone with ellroy for a while. which was fine. y'know, fine in the 'gang-raped by Satan and a slew of demons' way.
then donald tells me to check out don winslow and i read power of the dog and it's tragic and magnificent and fun and dark and great. and also the best book i've read on the mexican drug trade and our phony 'war on drugs' and NAFTA and san diego and tijuana and juarez, etc...
a few days ago donald tells me to read kem nunn, so i pick up tijuana straits. well, the book is wildly uneven and the ending chase could use some work, but nunn's there. in the club of great american contemporary crime writers. for sure. his contemporaries, those more highly regarded crime scribblers, they don't have shit on this guy: the overall construction and conception of this book goes places they don't even know exist. there are sentences and passages and whole sections (armando's back story!!!) that are so goddamn gloriously amazing and nunn's sense of place and locale is so perfect and the badass hopeful loser of a lead character he created... it was all so great that i'm about to tear through some of his other books.
i'll end with this: those kids that donald's wife keeps popping out are pretty damn lucky. goddamn, are those kids gonna be flooded with great shit.
i'm always on the lookout for great contemporary american crime fiction, for stuff that can stand up to the old guys. i've checked out all the big names -- connolly, leonard, pelecanos, price and all the other cats who write for the wire and, as much as i love the genre, i just can't really get into these guys. there's some good stuff, for sure, but nothing GREAT. nothing that spooks the shit outta you in the middle of the night, nothing that makes you happy when you have to crap so you can be alone with the book, nothing that gives you that thrillingly evil 'the world is a horrible place and we are a vile species' feeling...
well, none of 'em, save james ellroy. the one genre-busting genius-goddamn-writer who, in my opinion, bests all his elders and predecessors. and i was alone with ellroy for a while. which was fine. y'know, fine in the 'gang-raped by Satan and a slew of demons' way.
then donald tells me to check out don winslow and i read power of the dog and it's tragic and magnificent and fun and dark and great. and also the best book i've read on the mexican drug trade and our phony 'war on drugs' and NAFTA and san diego and tijuana and juarez, etc...
a few days ago donald tells me to read kem nunn, so i pick up tijuana straits. well, the book is wildly uneven and the ending chase could use some work, but nunn's there. in the club of great american contemporary crime writers. for sure. his contemporaries, those more highly regarded crime scribblers, they don't have shit on this guy: the overall construction and conception of this book goes places they don't even know exist. there are sentences and passages and whole sections (armando's back story!!!) that are so goddamn gloriously amazing and nunn's sense of place and locale is so perfect and the badass hopeful loser of a lead character he created... it was all so great that i'm about to tear through some of his other books.
i'll end with this: those kids that donald's wife keeps popping out are pretty damn lucky. goddamn, are those kids gonna be flooded with great shit.
January 27, 2013
An intense slow burn literary noir that shoots itself in the foot with an ending that isn't so much slow burn as dead on arrival.
This is the story of Sam Fahey, a once promising young man who threw everything away and now exists in a meth addicted haze of pain and misery. This is also the story of Armando Santoya, a young man whose dreams were destroyed by the reality of living in a chemically poisoned Tijuana run as much by narcotraficantes as a government only interested in American dollars. Magdalena Rivera is a legal crusader left for dead whose appearance in the lives of these two men that put them on a deadly collision course.
Divided in to three parts Kem Nunn has written a slow building suspense filled tale of loss and redemption, in the first part we are introduced to our three main characters, given extensive background on how their lives came to be so messed up, in the second they are put on a path of action that you know will bring them all together, you know it will be devastating when it occurs and then part three doesn't live up to that promise, at least not in any way I would have expected.
The story of Armando is horrifying, told in such a way as to make you sympathise with his plight and yet be revolted by the outcome of his choices. The slow decent of a naive dreamer in to madness is captured perfectly in a landscape painted vividly by a man who clearly knows the horrors of the streets of Tijuana.
The evocation of place is central to Nunn's literature here, without his fully realised imagery of a violent place populated by the lost, the disenfranchised, the abused, the deformed, the dangerous and the greedy the story of Armando and Magalena could have no real weight. The same can be said of the citizens dwelling on the American side of the border, in brief glimpses of Fahey's neighbours et al the insight in to the way of life and mindset provide understanding of who Fahey is and what he struggled against for his entire life.
Great things are achieved in this book, but they are let down by an ending of disappointingly small proportions. It's almost as if Nunn strayed too far from the noir aspects of this novel, found his literary leanings moving him away from the dark to a more wholesome denouement. It's not all happy families but it certainly didn't reach the depths of depravity in heart wrenching confrontations you are led to believe will occur. A shame, but don't let that stop you reading, Kem Nunn has got some real talent when it comes to this stuff and I recommend you check him out when you can.
This is the story of Sam Fahey, a once promising young man who threw everything away and now exists in a meth addicted haze of pain and misery. This is also the story of Armando Santoya, a young man whose dreams were destroyed by the reality of living in a chemically poisoned Tijuana run as much by narcotraficantes as a government only interested in American dollars. Magdalena Rivera is a legal crusader left for dead whose appearance in the lives of these two men that put them on a deadly collision course.
Divided in to three parts Kem Nunn has written a slow building suspense filled tale of loss and redemption, in the first part we are introduced to our three main characters, given extensive background on how their lives came to be so messed up, in the second they are put on a path of action that you know will bring them all together, you know it will be devastating when it occurs and then part three doesn't live up to that promise, at least not in any way I would have expected.
The story of Armando is horrifying, told in such a way as to make you sympathise with his plight and yet be revolted by the outcome of his choices. The slow decent of a naive dreamer in to madness is captured perfectly in a landscape painted vividly by a man who clearly knows the horrors of the streets of Tijuana.
The evocation of place is central to Nunn's literature here, without his fully realised imagery of a violent place populated by the lost, the disenfranchised, the abused, the deformed, the dangerous and the greedy the story of Armando and Magalena could have no real weight. The same can be said of the citizens dwelling on the American side of the border, in brief glimpses of Fahey's neighbours et al the insight in to the way of life and mindset provide understanding of who Fahey is and what he struggled against for his entire life.
Great things are achieved in this book, but they are let down by an ending of disappointingly small proportions. It's almost as if Nunn strayed too far from the noir aspects of this novel, found his literary leanings moving him away from the dark to a more wholesome denouement. It's not all happy families but it certainly didn't reach the depths of depravity in heart wrenching confrontations you are led to believe will occur. A shame, but don't let that stop you reading, Kem Nunn has got some real talent when it comes to this stuff and I recommend you check him out when you can.
July 10, 2011
Kem Nunn writes a novel like Robert Stone used to (Dog Soldiers and A Flag for Sunrise) so its no wonder he has earned Stone’s support and blurbs. Set in the wasteland between Tijuana and San Diego, the titular land is former paradise turned to hell by NAFTA, Narcotrafficantes, the border patrol, free roaming militias, wild dog packs, and pollution. A decaying landscape that attacks its inhabitants. The nearby slums of Tijuana with its toxic abandoned factories is a similarly terrifying landscape that breeds the three killers whose remorseless actions propel the plot to finale of redemption for Nunn’s protagonist Fahey. While Nunn’s never shortchanges the socioeconomic events that form his trio of killers their relentless onslaught and the language that describes it evokes the Cormac McCarhty of No Country for Old Men, Outer Dark, and Blood Meridian. Nunn’s tales of blasted border landscapes and redemption also remind of David Corbett’s work.
December 8, 2009
This is Kem Nunn at his best, showing you the dark side of living at the border and all the scary shit that goes on down there. Why hasn't some brilliant director snapped up his work?????
June 23, 2014
Rolling the North American Free Trade Agreement, the resulting industrial pollution, surfing, a working-class California beach town, the vagaries and terrors of the U.S.-Mexican border into literature takes some doing, but “Tijuana Straits” does it well.
Kem Nunn's thriller depicts an obscure corner of the country and fashions a novel example of “Surf Noir,” never leaning too much on that one aspect, but mixing it with others just right, so that “Straits” is one story about a number of different things.
The story unfolds (unravels?) in the Tijuana River Valley lying between the southernmost city in California, Imperial Beach, and the neighboring Mexican city for which it is named.
“...the valley beyond her window, as a great repository of bones and dreams as one was likely to find, and above which a flock of shorebirds broke suddenly from beaches beyond her sight.”
It's about a washed-up waterman named Fahey whose legend was earned surfing Tijuana Straits under the tutelage of an elusive and sainted sensei, Hoddy Younger.
“Goat Canyon, Smuggler's Gulch, Spooner's Mesa...He showed him how to find these landmarks from the water and how to line them up with the old Tijuana lighthouse at the edge of the bullring so that he could wait for the waves in the spots from which he would be able to catch and ride them.”
Mired in grim mid-life, Fahey runs a floundering worm farm in Imperial Beach, of which he says, “This is the end of the line, the only beachtown in California no one wants, where the sewage meets the sea.”
Along with the toxic brew that flows via the Tijuana River into the valley, polluting the estuary and chasing surfers from the beach break, locals like Fahey are at the forefront of the human wave surging at the base of the high-tech walls built to keep them out of the U.S.
Still they come: “And so you would see them, scarecrows with frightened eyes loitering in the shadows of the fence, along the cement walls of the flood control channel, at the bottom of every gully, clear to Las Playa, where they huddled amid the reek of excrement in the shadow of the bullring at the edge of the old people's park, fingering rosaries and counting out their luck.”
Fahey lives with these darknesses seeping up from the south in his own way: “He did not ask to hear the man's story or to what end he might have come, then or at any other time, and would in fact go to his own grave without knowing it, for by his own measure the world was composed of sad stories and he saw no reason to learn another.”
Until he runs into Magdalena, an outcast of a different type, given over to saving the world, or some very small part of it. An orphan and product of convent life, for her, “The hereafter would be what it would be. The struggle itself was the act by which one gave meaning to the world.”
They collide on a dark windy beach at the border fence one evening and her perils become his, and the story is about how Fahey rebuilds himself in order to help she who has broken the terminal nature of his loneliness and decline.
Kem Nunn's thriller depicts an obscure corner of the country and fashions a novel example of “Surf Noir,” never leaning too much on that one aspect, but mixing it with others just right, so that “Straits” is one story about a number of different things.
The story unfolds (unravels?) in the Tijuana River Valley lying between the southernmost city in California, Imperial Beach, and the neighboring Mexican city for which it is named.
“...the valley beyond her window, as a great repository of bones and dreams as one was likely to find, and above which a flock of shorebirds broke suddenly from beaches beyond her sight.”
It's about a washed-up waterman named Fahey whose legend was earned surfing Tijuana Straits under the tutelage of an elusive and sainted sensei, Hoddy Younger.
“Goat Canyon, Smuggler's Gulch, Spooner's Mesa...He showed him how to find these landmarks from the water and how to line them up with the old Tijuana lighthouse at the edge of the bullring so that he could wait for the waves in the spots from which he would be able to catch and ride them.”
Mired in grim mid-life, Fahey runs a floundering worm farm in Imperial Beach, of which he says, “This is the end of the line, the only beachtown in California no one wants, where the sewage meets the sea.”
Along with the toxic brew that flows via the Tijuana River into the valley, polluting the estuary and chasing surfers from the beach break, locals like Fahey are at the forefront of the human wave surging at the base of the high-tech walls built to keep them out of the U.S.
Still they come: “And so you would see them, scarecrows with frightened eyes loitering in the shadows of the fence, along the cement walls of the flood control channel, at the bottom of every gully, clear to Las Playa, where they huddled amid the reek of excrement in the shadow of the bullring at the edge of the old people's park, fingering rosaries and counting out their luck.”
Fahey lives with these darknesses seeping up from the south in his own way: “He did not ask to hear the man's story or to what end he might have come, then or at any other time, and would in fact go to his own grave without knowing it, for by his own measure the world was composed of sad stories and he saw no reason to learn another.”
Until he runs into Magdalena, an outcast of a different type, given over to saving the world, or some very small part of it. An orphan and product of convent life, for her, “The hereafter would be what it would be. The struggle itself was the act by which one gave meaning to the world.”
They collide on a dark windy beach at the border fence one evening and her perils become his, and the story is about how Fahey rebuilds himself in order to help she who has broken the terminal nature of his loneliness and decline.
December 9, 2019
Solid novel from the master of California-Surf-Noir. (Are there any other CSN authors out there? Or is this a one man genre?)
An anti-Maquiladora activist inadvertently flees Mexico during an attempt on her life, and finds herself in the orbit of a burned out surfer turned worm farmer. Nunn writes losers extremely well, and Sam "The Gull" Fahey is one of his archetypal characters - a surfer who was once on the cusp of greatness, who had a hard, prolonged fall, and is trying to finish his life with some measure of redemption.
Magdalena, the activist provides the sociopolitical meat of the story. Her arc contains the horrors of life among Tijuana's maquiladora workers, and the ripple effects of how factories with no work-safety or pollution regulations affect them, those of their children, and the world around them. Nunn's Tijuana is Hell.
This book sat in one of my various to-read piles for at least a decade. I never wanted to get invested because I thought it would be too much of a misery-fest. This time around, I was ready for a book about a loser - and while I wasn't disappointed - this novel captures Sam Fahey in a span that is devoid of extreme bleakness. To be any more specific would spoil it.
Nunn writes well. What I was most impressed with is how he portrays the villains of the piece. The primary antagonist, is given a well-rounded story. He's not simply two-dimensional evil. While not excusing his actions, Nunn gives him a proper and believable back story.
Finally, it's taut. The pages fly by. The mechanics of surfing are explained well enough for the layman to understand and be beguiled by. There's violence, and action.
This is an excellent novel. Recommended for fans of Noir, or sociopolitical novels.
An anti-Maquiladora activist inadvertently flees Mexico during an attempt on her life, and finds herself in the orbit of a burned out surfer turned worm farmer. Nunn writes losers extremely well, and Sam "The Gull" Fahey is one of his archetypal characters - a surfer who was once on the cusp of greatness, who had a hard, prolonged fall, and is trying to finish his life with some measure of redemption.
Magdalena, the activist provides the sociopolitical meat of the story. Her arc contains the horrors of life among Tijuana's maquiladora workers, and the ripple effects of how factories with no work-safety or pollution regulations affect them, those of their children, and the world around them. Nunn's Tijuana is Hell.
This book sat in one of my various to-read piles for at least a decade. I never wanted to get invested because I thought it would be too much of a misery-fest. This time around, I was ready for a book about a loser - and while I wasn't disappointed - this novel captures Sam Fahey in a span that is devoid of extreme bleakness. To be any more specific would spoil it.
Nunn writes well. What I was most impressed with is how he portrays the villains of the piece. The primary antagonist, is given a well-rounded story. He's not simply two-dimensional evil. While not excusing his actions, Nunn gives him a proper and believable back story.
Finally, it's taut. The pages fly by. The mechanics of surfing are explained well enough for the layman to understand and be beguiled by. There's violence, and action.
This is an excellent novel. Recommended for fans of Noir, or sociopolitical novels.
September 13, 2014
ACCURATE STAR RATING= 3.5
why did I read this book?
I bought it at the San Diego State University book store. what caught my eye was a gold sticker on the cover that read "local author." the cover itself wasn't very appealing to me, personally.
PROS:
the writing is actually pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised considering I'd never heard of him before.
I like that I can relate to the location in this book and I even went and hunted down some of the location sites in Imperial Beach.
the story moves along pretty well and the characters are likeable, for the most part.
Kem Nunn has a good grasp on local character, biology, and urban setting. I appreciate that he described the run-down conditions of Tijuana, Mexico, without degrading the people.
CONS:
the use of the phrase "in point of fact." I like this phrase. I think I first encountered it while reading Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, but don't quote me on that. HOWEVER, Nunn uses this phrase like 4, 5 times. I'm not entirely sure why this bugs me, but it does.
The ending is a bit vague. I don't want to describe the ending in too much detail, but the death of a character is by water-borne illness and I wanted more detail and interaction with the character at this stage.
also, there was a very detailed description of a character's career in Mexico, but it didn't ever really tie in with the main story to me. he could have been a little less wordy and had a better book.
VERDICT:
overall a decent read and especially interesting for people who live in the San Diego area.
why did I read this book?
I bought it at the San Diego State University book store. what caught my eye was a gold sticker on the cover that read "local author." the cover itself wasn't very appealing to me, personally.
PROS:
the writing is actually pretty good! I was pleasantly surprised considering I'd never heard of him before.
I like that I can relate to the location in this book and I even went and hunted down some of the location sites in Imperial Beach.
the story moves along pretty well and the characters are likeable, for the most part.
Kem Nunn has a good grasp on local character, biology, and urban setting. I appreciate that he described the run-down conditions of Tijuana, Mexico, without degrading the people.
CONS:
the use of the phrase "in point of fact." I like this phrase. I think I first encountered it while reading Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, but don't quote me on that. HOWEVER, Nunn uses this phrase like 4, 5 times. I'm not entirely sure why this bugs me, but it does.
The ending is a bit vague. I don't want to describe the ending in too much detail, but the death of a character is by water-borne illness and I wanted more detail and interaction with the character at this stage.
also, there was a very detailed description of a character's career in Mexico, but it didn't ever really tie in with the main story to me. he could have been a little less wordy and had a better book.
VERDICT:
overall a decent read and especially interesting for people who live in the San Diego area.
June 29, 2014
I so enjoyed Kem Nunn's writing. The book was a Kindle Daily Deal and I am so happy I bought the book. I plan on reading other novels by Kem Nunn. I can't get the characters or places out of my mind. My favorite book this year.
March 13, 2017
After reading this book, you will never think of Imperial Beach, California the same again. The author lives in Imperial Beach and knows the surfing culture and darker underbelly of this beach town that lies so close to its neighbor, Mexico, that it can't help but also be an extension of that country. When the rains come, Imperial Beach not only suffers the onslaught of Baja's toxic runoff, but also creates havoc with the local intrepid denizens of the Tijuana basin. This is a fascinating read. As dark as Nunn paints IB, he also leaves his reader wanting to be a part of what makes it so unique.
March 11, 2019
Down and out surfer, haunted by failure, longing for redemption, watching the days go by on his inherited worm farm in the Tijuana River basin. And then one day a bonita señorita washes up on his beach... And the rest is a glimpse into the dark side of Tijuana poverty and first world exploitation of both people and the environment.
Timely but dated view of life around the Mexican border (written in 2004, don't think Nunn or anyone would have predicted "Build The Wall" Trumpism 15 years later).
It's a fun read with classic noir timing. Nunn's writing in this one gets sloppy at times. Here's an example of one of his simile fails:
They ran through a field of grass and weeds gone dry and brittle with the end of summer [...], the sharpened ends of broken weeds pulling at them as might the residents of nursing homes, reaching out from cloistered senility
Yeah, bring in the vision of nursing home residents right at a run-for-your-life scene. No. Doesn't work. But of course in his noir style most of Kem Nunn's simile / metaphors work like an old Chevy V8 small block powering a rusted body rotted tractor with 6 foot sand tires pulling a beach combing sled.
Timely but dated view of life around the Mexican border (written in 2004, don't think Nunn or anyone would have predicted "Build The Wall" Trumpism 15 years later).
It's a fun read with classic noir timing. Nunn's writing in this one gets sloppy at times. Here's an example of one of his simile fails:
They ran through a field of grass and weeds gone dry and brittle with the end of summer [...], the sharpened ends of broken weeds pulling at them as might the residents of nursing homes, reaching out from cloistered senility
Yeah, bring in the vision of nursing home residents right at a run-for-your-life scene. No. Doesn't work. But of course in his noir style most of Kem Nunn's simile / metaphors work like an old Chevy V8 small block powering a rusted body rotted tractor with 6 foot sand tires pulling a beach combing sled.
December 26, 2012
I live about 20 miles from where the action of Kem Nunn's "Tijuana Straits" takes place. Mr. Nunn's feel for the place is extraordinary. The plot of the novel is interesting and the characters of Sam Fahey and Magdalena are rich and well drawn. Magdalena is a young woman from Mexico trying to uncover environmental crimes committed by factory owners. Sam is a famed surfer with a criminal past and a heart of gold. Yeah, a bit cliché but still effective. The ending is top notch.
Yet, I could hardly finish this book. One reason is that I have no interest in surfing whatsoever. I find all this mumbo jumbo about the Mystic Peak, the Third Notch, the one great wave just boring. Sam could be a state champion in knitting or embroidery, and it would be equally interesting to me. This is, of course, my bias, and I am sorry for it.
The main reason for how hard I struggled to read this book is the exalted language. The book is ridiculously overwrought. Pages upon pages of language when one sentence would suffice.
Other readers may find this book great and I will understand them. I can't stand books that use ten times more words than needed (a purely personal pet peeve).
Two and three quarters stars.
Yet, I could hardly finish this book. One reason is that I have no interest in surfing whatsoever. I find all this mumbo jumbo about the Mystic Peak, the Third Notch, the one great wave just boring. Sam could be a state champion in knitting or embroidery, and it would be equally interesting to me. This is, of course, my bias, and I am sorry for it.
The main reason for how hard I struggled to read this book is the exalted language. The book is ridiculously overwrought. Pages upon pages of language when one sentence would suffice.
Other readers may find this book great and I will understand them. I can't stand books that use ten times more words than needed (a purely personal pet peeve).
Two and three quarters stars.
November 14, 2009
Interesting but wordy story of a "Big Lebowski" type surfer dude/worm farmer living by the beach along the California Tijuana border who finds a Mexican woman, Magdelena, fleeing for her life after her activist legal confrontation with polluting factory management in Tijuana. The action really picks up in the last half of the story.
All of Nunn's characters (Protagonist/loser Fahey, heroine/activist, Magdelena, and the pathetic killer, Armando) are wonderfully developed and interesting. His writing has a real feel for the atmosphere he creates.
All of Nunn's characters (Protagonist/loser Fahey, heroine/activist, Magdelena, and the pathetic killer, Armando) are wonderfully developed and interesting. His writing has a real feel for the atmosphere he creates.
March 17, 2010
My first experience with surfer noir. The hero is different because he always has the next tasty wave to look forward to when he needs to escape. This is not played for laughs; the worldview of a surfer dealing with the crime and corruption along the California-Mexico border makes up for the lack of a strong mystery. I would like to read more of his novels even though I wasn't crazy about "John From Cincinnati;" Kem Nunn was one of its producers.
January 5, 2008
A hapless ex surfer and a Mexican woman pursued by political enemies meet by accident on the US border. Nunn wrote the book that became the terrible action film Point Break, but he's considered a true talent, and he's won some literary prizes. This is his best, I think.
February 16, 2008
A dark and seedy surf novel? Yep... Tijuana Straits takes place along the Mexican border, and features a brooding surf legend as its hero. Nunn has a distinctive voice and tells a gripping story full of myth and redemption. Also take a look at Dogs of Winter.
August 27, 2023
I'm not a crime noir fan, but must give a shout-out here to Kem Nunn, for painting a mysterious, gorgeous, heart-breaking, frightening and beautiful depiction of the beaches around the California/Mexican border. One of the world's most beautiful and expensive cities, laid down snugly next to one of Mexico's poorest cities, and all the depravity that goes with it. Both cities within a stone's throw of each other. The crime, the poverty, the hopelessness and the pollution. The same pollution, created by corporate greed, that threatens a uniquely beautiful and fragile ecosystem, not to mention those who live or frequent this area. It's midnight in the garden of good and evil. I thought Mr. Nunn captured the irony, tragedy and beauty of this part of the border very well. I was a little surprised by the endings. I say endings because our hero gets more than one episode of redemption, stacked together at the end. Didn't quite believe all of it, but by the time you reach the last half of this novel, you are so invested in this classic anti-hero, some of it is satisfying. Fahey is a good guy, who took such a wrong turn in life, it's questionable if he deserves a second chance. But somehow you want him to get one. Mr. Nunn uses unique, horrifying and sometimes funny situations to present this unforgettable and original story of Tijuana, surfing, broken lives, and redemption. Great story for surf fans, Californians, and anyone interested in this odd and mesmerizing part of the world.
January 22, 2019
Sam "the gull" Fahey was a legendary big wave surfer off the coast of Tijuana and San Diego, but his life has gone considerably sour since its earlier glories. Now he's a worm farmer living out of a trailer not far from the polluted wasteland of the border area, where he descended into drug addiction, selling, and eventually prison time.
This "loser who squandered his glory but now seeks redemption" story is a familiar one, but the author also seasons it with a kind of Dante-esque descent into the hellhole of the Straits and the social and environmental "disaster" that Tijuana has become. The predatory slums and their dystopian inhabitants, the toxic maquiladora factories, the horror of poisoned children and missing women, from which emerges Magdelana, an activist for the poor people of Tijuana and a kind of Angel of mercy. Fahey becomes her ally, and thus she leads him along at least the beginning of his road to redemption.
The story is gripping, complex, and topical, even though written in 2004. My only problem with it was an occasional run-on writing style, long chains of clauses almost without end. It was as though the writer was never enough satisfied with one description, so that another had to be added alongside of it, giving the prose an almost attenuated formality, like the Bible's. Other than this quibble, I loved the ending, and I will definitely pick up another novel by Kem Nunn.
This "loser who squandered his glory but now seeks redemption" story is a familiar one, but the author also seasons it with a kind of Dante-esque descent into the hellhole of the Straits and the social and environmental "disaster" that Tijuana has become. The predatory slums and their dystopian inhabitants, the toxic maquiladora factories, the horror of poisoned children and missing women, from which emerges Magdelana, an activist for the poor people of Tijuana and a kind of Angel of mercy. Fahey becomes her ally, and thus she leads him along at least the beginning of his road to redemption.
The story is gripping, complex, and topical, even though written in 2004. My only problem with it was an occasional run-on writing style, long chains of clauses almost without end. It was as though the writer was never enough satisfied with one description, so that another had to be added alongside of it, giving the prose an almost attenuated formality, like the Bible's. Other than this quibble, I loved the ending, and I will definitely pick up another novel by Kem Nunn.
January 7, 2025
Four stars is a pretty good rating for a book that I wasn’t sure I’d finish. Part one was slow, and I didn’t like the main character Fahey. He’’s an aging surfer with a checkered past, a shaky present, and a lot of remorse that he calms with drugs. He lives an isolated life, unsuccessfully trying to find peace in his life.
The novel starts in the no man’s land between the U.S. and Mexico, just north of Tijuana, by the ocean. Fahey, an aging surfer with a checkered past and a lot of remorse, saves a young, injured woman.
Magdalena is a young woman risking her life to save her people, Tijuana’s poorest, from the exploitative maquiladoras.
The novel comes to life in part two. There are some intense descriptions of the effects the maquiladoras have on the workers, told through the example of one dead-end young man named Armando.
This is a story of exploitation, and of broken dreams, of desperation and economic hardship, and of social and environmental issues. It’s also a story about recovering your soul, lost in a nowhere land when you’ve lost your moral compass.
The novel starts in the no man’s land between the U.S. and Mexico, just north of Tijuana, by the ocean. Fahey, an aging surfer with a checkered past and a lot of remorse, saves a young, injured woman.
Magdalena is a young woman risking her life to save her people, Tijuana’s poorest, from the exploitative maquiladoras.
The novel comes to life in part two. There are some intense descriptions of the effects the maquiladoras have on the workers, told through the example of one dead-end young man named Armando.
This is a story of exploitation, and of broken dreams, of desperation and economic hardship, and of social and environmental issues. It’s also a story about recovering your soul, lost in a nowhere land when you’ve lost your moral compass.
July 14, 2025
I want to preface this by saying I have wanted to read this book for a very long time. I forgot about it, then I found it again and checked it out of my local library. I did stop reading at page 157.
So there wasn’t anything exactly WRONG with the plot or the book or the writing and the characters were interesting enough, which is why I rounded what I might have put as a 3.5 to a 4, but it was just incredibly ADULT and I think that’s why I decided to DNF. What I mean by that is this:
There are a lot of very political things moving the plot, a lot of “is the government killing people, what are they covering up” that on the surface sounds great! I love a good conspiracy! But there is a lot of telling and background to what’s happening that come 157 pages in I’m just a little bored. It’s absolutely a ME thing, and not the book.
I 100% will be reading other works by Ken Nunn because I’m interested and adore the surfing aspect he put into this book. Just maybe this one is not for me.
So there wasn’t anything exactly WRONG with the plot or the book or the writing and the characters were interesting enough, which is why I rounded what I might have put as a 3.5 to a 4, but it was just incredibly ADULT and I think that’s why I decided to DNF. What I mean by that is this:
There are a lot of very political things moving the plot, a lot of “is the government killing people, what are they covering up” that on the surface sounds great! I love a good conspiracy! But there is a lot of telling and background to what’s happening that come 157 pages in I’m just a little bored. It’s absolutely a ME thing, and not the book.
I 100% will be reading other works by Ken Nunn because I’m interested and adore the surfing aspect he put into this book. Just maybe this one is not for me.
September 15, 2024
Not much surfing action here, but plenty of surfing attitude. Our hero used to be a top surfer. He got off the track. He has a couple of prison stints behind him, as well as drug running and other various misdeeds. Presently he runs a worm farm.
Stumbling into his life comes a Mexican troublemaker. That is a woman who is trying to make trouble for both American and Mexican industrial criminals. The kind our politicians love to take money from and in turn save their butts. Adventure ensures.
Mr. Nunn gives us a guided tour of the horrors of Mexican industry and pollution. Educational. Exciting. Disgusting.
We cause immense suffering across the border. Letting in a few brave souls seems a small price to pay for letting all those millionaires and billionaires have free rein.
Recommended.
Stumbling into his life comes a Mexican troublemaker. That is a woman who is trying to make trouble for both American and Mexican industrial criminals. The kind our politicians love to take money from and in turn save their butts. Adventure ensures.
Mr. Nunn gives us a guided tour of the horrors of Mexican industry and pollution. Educational. Exciting. Disgusting.
We cause immense suffering across the border. Letting in a few brave souls seems a small price to pay for letting all those millionaires and billionaires have free rein.
Recommended.
March 2, 2025
First novel written by a guy I've enjoyed in some time. Never heard of him before. Discovered him on a shelf in the library. Now, stars suck, but this was good. As I say, particularly for having been written by a guy. He handles the girl/guy part of it in the right way. And it becomes a kind of fantasy, even though the genre is called noir, where dirt smirched reality blends into dirt smirched unreality almost in a Mexican Day of the Dead sort of way.
It's about the borderlands called Tijuana Straits, contemporary Southern California, and the toxic poverty and violence about which the average person probably doesn't know very much. So, if you want to get yourself a very dark enlightenment, here it is.
And for the folks who require "good writing," which I don't particularly, it has that too.
It's about the borderlands called Tijuana Straits, contemporary Southern California, and the toxic poverty and violence about which the average person probably doesn't know very much. So, if you want to get yourself a very dark enlightenment, here it is.
And for the folks who require "good writing," which I don't particularly, it has that too.
July 2, 2020
Rough, violent and kind of hopeless in tone. And not just "kind of". Reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's novels, especially "No Country for Old Men". In my opinion McCarthy does it slightly better, though.
This was interesting but as said, very dark and desperate. Poverty and injustice without much hope for a brighter future. Crimes without much passion. All that with the sugar coating of drugs and pollution.
A couple of old surfers trying to cope, make a living of some sort and waiting for the Big wave and the touch of the days gone.
Big minus for the violence towards animals. I didn't consider that relevant for the story. Even though I do identify the ugly reality and the evil nature of homo sapiens, the most wretched species on Earth.
Tijuanan aallot
Johnny Kniga 2005
This was interesting but as said, very dark and desperate. Poverty and injustice without much hope for a brighter future. Crimes without much passion. All that with the sugar coating of drugs and pollution.
A couple of old surfers trying to cope, make a living of some sort and waiting for the Big wave and the touch of the days gone.
Big minus for the violence towards animals. I didn't consider that relevant for the story. Even though I do identify the ugly reality and the evil nature of homo sapiens, the most wretched species on Earth.
Tijuanan aallot
Johnny Kniga 2005
September 2, 2017
Tijuana Straits defines the new surfer noir genre. The characters are too fringe to be compared to Raymond Chandler and the vibe is too 60s and 70s gone wrong to be part of classic noir tales. The plot is timeworn, but not predictable. The writing is beautiful if a bit much at times and Nunn obviously has a feel for the time and place. Other reviewers said the ending was too pat. That requires some thought--I don't know how I would have ended it differently. In this world of constant sequels and characters developed for serials, I thought the ending had a certain amount of integrity. Sam Fahey won't be back to snare my almighty dollar. I will however keep buying Kem Nunn books.
January 14, 2021
I enjoyed this book. Set on the border between Mexico and the USA, around Tijuana, it follows the story of Fahey and Magdalena, who meet by chance in difficult and threatening circumstances. It's written in a free-wheeling easy way and packs quite a lot of punch in terms of the issues and lives it skirts around and over - those of the migrants trying to make it into the States and those of the workers indentured to the maquiladora plants on the Mexican side of the border. Brutal, touching and poetic in places, this book is certainly notable for its blunt engagement with the politics of this violent border region.
February 19, 2024
Kem Nunn is the Godfather of a very small genre called "surf noir," and I absolutely love the genre and Nunn's books. Tijuana Straits is a taut thriller with political and environmental themes running through it, but at its core, it's still a surf book. Nunn always creates flawed and interesting characters, some of whom are at the "end of the road," which fittingly, ends at the Pacific Ocean. This is as much a "border book" as it is a surf novel and the two fit together like hand-in-glove. Nunn has been a successful TV writer (Deadwood, John From Cincinnati), but his heart and soul lives in these novels. If the term "surf noir" is intriguing to you, check out Kem Nunn.
May 12, 2018
This is a fun thriller set in the Tijuana-San Diego borderlands. It is a quick read that contains only a little purple prose. It is unique because of how it treats Tijuana: instead of framing it mainly as a place for vice, he shows that it is a site of environmental and social crisis thanks to NAFTA and the maquiladoras that it brought. He makes this a central part of the story, which is a welcome improvement upon many novels about the area.
January 19, 2021
The land just north of the Mexican border at Tijuana plays the key role in this suspense-thriller. Despite being filled with southern California sunshine, this is a dark, noir tale that builds suspense slowly to a dramatic climax. Then a most unusual denouement occurs which leads to an ending which is beautiful, satisfying and tragic. Kem Nunn’s writing is superb, and quite superior to the typical suspense thriller. The memory of this story will stay with me for a long time.
May 18, 2021
Let me start off by saying this is the first book I have read from this author and he is a very good and even possibly a brilliant writer. In saying that, I felt the book went a little everywhere, started building you up about 3/4 of the way and then the ending let me down. It seem that The Gull cleaned up good for somebody that drank beer back to back all day long along with popping volume in the same fashion.
October 12, 2020
Kem goes the distance with the old broken character , struggles, redemption, sadness. The Nelson Algren of the southern California beach towns life. Fluent ? Deep settling descriptive pose ? An artistic spinning of a hard nose subject. If you want to know more about the borderland, Tijuana, Smugglers gulch, Goat Canyon nd the rest on the border wall, it's described in detail.
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