On The Plain Of Snakes: A Mexican Journey

by Paul Theroux

The legendary travel writer drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then takes the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind the everyday headlines . Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility that he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as family members brave the journey north. From the writer praised for his “curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms” ( The New York Times Book Review ), On the Plain of Snakes is an exploration of a region in conflict.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Adventure, Audiobook, Politics

448 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2019

About the author

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.

He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”’Do you want to see my papers?’

The hot stink of this decaying part of the city clawed at my nose as he leaned and put his darkened face closer to me, shouting, ‘Do you know what I can do to you? I can take you over there’--he flapped his hand in the direction of the dark end of the alleyway where the slum dwellers had fled. ‘I can take your car. I can do what I want.’

‘Sabes que te puedo hacer?’ Do you know what I can do to you? Spoken by an enraged policeman in Mexico, that statement seizes your attention, and so does ‘Puedo hacer lo que quiera’--I can do what I want. After all, this is a country where police have been responislbe for arbitrary killing, kidnapping, suffocation, and torture, including electrocution and medieval strappado.”



To be honest, Paul Theroux would have been disappointed with his trip if he hadn’t gotten hassled by a Mexican police officer. I’ve been following Theroux’s career pretty much from the moment I started reading. I’ve travelled with him by train, by bus, by boat, and now I’ve taken a car trip with him into Mexico. I’ve half expected over the years to see a news report of the unexpected demise of the writer Paul Theroux in some far flung jungle or scorching desert. It certainly wouldn’t be as glamorous to read the headline Travel Writer Paul Theroux found dead in a back alley in Buena Vista, Mexico.

He has been told over and over that the police are as dangerous as the cartels.

Despite his shakedown by this enraged cop, most of his trip, as he has snaked back and forth across the border, has been down right pleasurable. The food is great, and the people are friendly, helpful, and actually glad to see an American travelling for pleasure through their country. When I lived in Tucson and had daily contact with Hispanics, I always found them to be courteous and stoic about everything. They were a pleasure to know and be around, and, man,...could they throw a good party.

Theroux has just turned 76 and lives in a country where youthful exuberance is worshiped over the wisdom of old age. Despite his level of success, he is starting to feel irrelevant, and what better balm for all those insecurities than to go to a country where his age is venerated, rather than seen as a curse. ”I had begun my trip to Mexico in a mood of dejection and self-pity, feeling shunned, overlooked, ignored, rejected--easily identifying with migrants and Mexicans, who knew that same feeling of being despised. I’d hoped the trip would be salutary, a cure for my sour mood, and so it proved.”

As always, I come away from yet another Paul Theroux book with a long list of books he recommends. He sprinkles them through the text because the books he has read blend with and enhance the life he is living. He sees something, and it reminds him of this passage he read twenty years ago. Everything has more life and color when you’ve read thousands of books to add nuance to every new experience.

He takes this class to brush up on his Spanish, and they ask him that dreaded question that all voracious readers don’t like to be asked. ”And at once I became conscious of being elderly and conspicuous, because my hesitation seemed like the doddering of an old buffer. But it wasn’t that at all; I was fully alert, my head surveying shelves of books, authors and titles on their spines. Choose one is the diabolical demand.” I understood his bafflement at the question. It is a question I’ve been asked over and over again, and yet I struggle to answer each time I’m asked. This is a much easier question for the person who reads 5-10 books a year, but with reading 125+ books a year, I have a plethora of choices. Even asking which is my favorite book of the year takes arduous pondering and much indecision before selecting one just to end the torture of weighing the value of my newest friends. I’m twenty plus years younger than Theroux, so imagine how much more frustrating that question will be to answer when I’m his age.

I skimmed a few one star reviews of this book which lambasted Theroux for being so critical of our current president. I was expecting an ongoing roast of he who shall not be named, but it was nothing of the sort. Of course, he was a topic of conversation. You can’t call a whole race of people murderers and rapists without inspiring their ire. I thought Theroux was equally critical, and in many ways more damning, of Clinton’s NAFTA policy, which certainly did not benefit manufacturing jobs in the US and hasn’t proved to be a big boon for Mexico either. ”I’d also traveled the length of the border, looking closely at both sides: the fields on the US side where Mexican migrants worked for low wages, the factories on the Mexican side where Mexicans from the poorer parts of Mexico were employed, also poorly paid. This was the blighting effect of NAFTA, which boasted of raising people’s standard of living while at the same time exploiting them.”

The Zapatistas have launched an ongoing rebellion in Mexico and have managed to establish 38 strongholds all over Chiapas. They realize that the only way they are going to resist the corruption of the government, the violence of the cartels, and stay out of the hands of the crooked police is to establish self-governing strongholds. They have, for all intents and purposes, seceded from Mexico. Theroux spent some time among them and certainly came away with a feeling of hope that these people were determined to develop communities based on the fundamental rights of universal health care and well paying jobs. What they are attempting to do in these communities has a strange allure for those of us who are feeling more and more strangled by the corruption, greed, and disconnection we are seeing from our government.

As always, I enjoy spending time with Theroux. He is more melancholy than normal and certainly more nostalgic. Fortunately for him, he has a lot of great experiences to be nostalgic about. He found solace in spending time with people with real problems who are struggling to find a path forward, not to be rich but to be happy and content.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit and http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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[Andrew Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Theroux is often lauded as potentially the greatest travel writer of his generation, and with this book, he shows that his power remains undiminished.

Mexico is a big country, something like eight times the size of the United Kingdom, and yet its population is only about twice that of the UK. It’s ethnically diverse with just over half of its people identifying themselves as mixed race. It’s rich in natural resources, but its wealth is unevenly distributed, with the top ten percent of the population hogging nearly half of the income and (according to Wikipedia) a third the countries inhabitants are forced to get by on less that $5 per day. And the principle message I get from television and radio is that Mexicans are permanently queued up at it’s border attempting to bust, sneak, or climb their way into the promised land that lies to the north. It’s the message that Trump has been blasting out, the ‘build the wall’ mantra he’s been espousing for years, that appears to have been Theroux’s prompt to explore this land. What’s life really like on the other side of the fence?

Our intrepid traveller sets out a plan to drive along the American side of the border, from San Ysidro in the West to Brownsville in the East, slipping over into Mexico at every crossing opportunity to visit border towns and talk to people on both sides of the divide. Once this exercise has been completed, he will head south and drive the length of the country. As always happens when I join him on his journeys, it becomes obvious from the start that he will meet interesting people, unearth thought provoking facts and stimulate a desire in me to step out of my own comfort zone and explore some of the more interesting regions of this big wide world we live in.

Theroux’s border exploration certainly threw up a few early eye-opening surprises for me:

- His experience suggests that gringos (particularly those of advanced years – he’s now in his mid to late seventies) are treated with a good deal of respect in Mexico. This contrasts starkly with how Trump and his crew paint the average Mexican and, therefore, the way in which many who have made the journey in the opposite direction are treated or perceived.

- People living in the border towns in both countries tend to laugh at the idea of building a bigger, better wall: the standard retort being along the lines of if you big a bigger wall they’ll just find a longer ladder.

- The border is certainly very porous, though significantly less so since 911. It’s also clear that there is a ready market for crossings driven partly from people coming into Mexico and travelling north from violent Central American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Also, increasingly, many from Africa, India, and Pakistan fly into Mexico and attempt to cross the border into America. There is a steady market for professional criminals (coyotes) who charge hundreds (or sometimes thousands) of dollars to transport these people across the border. But more than this, it’s clear that thousands of Mexicans make the journey across the border daily, quite legally, to work and then return to their homes at the end of their labours. In this sense, the border felt to Theroux more like a blur than a clean straight line.

- In Theroux’s earlier book Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads he talked about the loss of manufacturing jobs to factories being set up in Mexico, but what I hadn’t realised is that many of these these are sited literally a stone's throw from the border itself, clearly visible from the American side. Mexicans working in these factories can typically work a ten-hour shift for an average pay of $6.

After completing the border section of his journey he heads south from Reynosa, heeding the many warnings he’s received from both his fellow countrymen and most of the Mexicans he’s met along the way; primarily the advice he received consisted of an instruction not to travel at night and to make sure that his car his was safely protected while he slept. As I read this account of his journey, the people he met and the conversations he had with them, I felt a mixture of envy at the adventurousness of it all mixed in with a pang of anxiety for Theroux’s wellbeing – it’s clear he was taking some risks, certainly more risks than I’d have entertained. On one occasion, early on, he explored the red light area of a town with the help of a local driver who was clearly reluctant to enter this dingy, threatening neighbourhood, even during daylight hours.

From the start, the author had heard talk of how the cartel gangs fought with each other over territory, how these gangs were often in cahoots with the police and that random kidnappings and murders were common place. In the town of San Luis Potosí he came across a demonstration concerning the kidnap and likely murder of forty-three students a few years earlier, most of the bodies never found. This is the dark side of Mexico. In fact, as he approached Mexico City, Theroux had two run-ins with the police, both as a result of minor (or perceived) traffic violations. In both instances, the police officer aggressively demanded money (between $250-$300) or he’d have his car impounded. He was later to experience this again and learn that these shakedowns are routine in a country where corruption amongst the police, local authorities, and the government is rife. In fact, it’s a commonly held belief that there is no separation between the police, the military, and the narcos. On the flip side, he was to find, particularly amongst uncomplaining people who had the very least, a generosity and kindness of spirit that was restorative.

Through his journey, Theroux describes the what he sees and the places he visits, drops in a little history here and there, ruminates on Mexico’s art and culture and provides a regular dose of interesting and amusing anecdotes. He’s a chatty fellow and he clearly speaks passable Spanish, so he mixes readily with the locals and is able to provide a sense of their perspective on life in this country with its many challenges and significant perils. But he also sees that there is an appreciable upside of living in a place where, for the most part, family is sacrosanct and the old ways are still valued and preserved, particularly in the poorer towns and villages.

In fact, as he travels south, beyond Mexico City, he points out that though the north lies in the shadow of America, teased by its rich neighbour, the south is a place apart, the poorest part of the country. His experiences confirm a phrase he’d come across before - the past of a place survives in its poor. He’d taught a class to a group of eager writers for ten days in Mexico City and now he’d booked himself in as a student to buff up his own Spanish during a three-week spell at a school in Oaxaca. In the final sections, he heads further south still, increasingly delving into the history and culture of this land.

I most enjoyed Theroux’s accounts of the travel itself, talking to people he met along the way, the accounts of his small adventures, and his honesty regarding the worries and insecurities he experienced as he travelled. His awe at the dramatic landscapes is obvious, as is his displeasure at the ugly urban sprawl that is an ingredient of just about every city he passed through. But above all it’s the overpowering feeling of discovery that shines through. How brave of him to take on such a massive and hazardous trip at an age many are lighting the fire, pulling up the comfy chair and donning the slippers. He’s an intelligent and insightful companion, and I’d urge anyone who has an interest in travel to grab a copy of this book – I found it truly inspirational.

My sincere thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Migrant’s Prayer

“The journey towards you, Lord, is life. To set off is to die a little. To arrive is never to arrive until one is at rest with you. You, Lord, experienced migration. And then you, yourself became a migrant from heaven to earth. I was just a tourist.” ~~a note found in the pocket of an unidentified migrant’s pocket who had died in the desert.

Paul Theroux is driving to Mexico in order to learn if what Donald J. Trump had said about the Mexicans was true or not. I have a strong feeling that he knew already that they were not all rapists and criminals as Trump had stated. But, if he didn’t know, I could have told him because I had traveled throughout Mexico in the mid-80s and in the 90s I traveled to all the border towns. The people were kind and friendly, and I loved them and their country.

Theroux spent a lot of time in the border towns just talking to people, learning how dangerous the border towns are now and trying to just understand what is going on. He learned that some of the U.S. border patrol officers have shot and killed Mexicans who were trying to cross the border. One patrol officer waited until a man was at the top of the 30-foot fence and then he shot and killed him. This did not come as a surprise to me after reading The Lucifer Effect, a book on The Stanford Prison Experiment. And I now worry about the immigrants that have been placed in camps at the border.

It was said that the cartel owns the border towns. Then there is also corruption by the police, the mafia and the coyotes. It was also stated by the borderer patrol that only some who cross through the desert are carrying drugs, and they are often forced to do so under threat of killing their families if they don’t do as told. Most drugs are taken through the tunnels or are hidden in trucks that cross the border at check points.
Americans and Mexicans alike, say if Trump builds a 30-foot wall, the Mexicans will built a 35-foot ladder. The walll can be cut though with a $100.oo cutting tool that you can buy at Lowe’s. And. Well, I just read in paper that the border wall that Trump had built in San Diego has been cut through by using this tool, and that they have already built a 35-foot ladder. Once they get in motion detectors installed,, they believe that this won’t happen. I think they are wrong.

I never felt threatened in Mexico in the 80s and 90s, instead I felt safe, even though my friend Julie and I were stopped by a police officer in Mexico City for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. The policeman didn’t threaten us. I don’t even know if we had to give him money. But I will add this: We hated Mexico City with its smog. The street signs were blackened by said smog, so you could not read them. The trees were dead. All you could see of them were black trunks. We were only trying to get out of there, having taken a plane too Mexico City and renting a car. The smog was so bad that our throats had dried out in minutes. While in the past we had refused to buy chewing gum from the kids who walked up to our car window, we now bought several packs. It was just enough to hopefully get us out of town.

Theroux finally left the border towns and headed for Mexico City, which he liked even though he had been terrorized when he was stopped twice by the police for traffic violations. By then maybe Mexico City had no street signs. Maybe they had died like the trees we saw had. Anyway, they were very threatening, demanding a lot of money and told him that they could do as they pleased with him. It was then that I realized that I would never wish to be in Mexico again. Well, at least not any border town or in Mexico City.

After a brief time in the City, Theroux headed for San Miguel de Allende, a city that I loved when I was there twice. once only a drive through. He mentioned that it was the number one place for retirees, and how after WWII, Europeans flocked to this city and made it their home. I wanted to live there myself.

Then he went to Oaxaca, which was one of the first Mexican cities that I had visited. I had loved it too. He stayed awhile and even took a Spanish class at a school.

So, by now I was really into this book, enjoying his time there and realizing again how great of a writer he is, as well as being a very fine person. Now, I just hope he takes more trips and writes yet more books.

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A truly puzzling effort. Theroux is well-known for his travel narratives, which got off to a shaky start with the tiresome The Great Railway Bazaar and boring The Old Patagonian Express, but steadily improved until The Kingdom by the Sea and The Pillars of Hercules were genuine pleasures to read, at least for me.

I have a theory. Sentence-by-sentence writing is one of this author's strengths, but empathy, the ability to imagine life from somebody else's perspective, seems to steadily elude him. In well-off countries like Great Britain and those nations lining the Mediterranean, this is not such a great problem -- here, people's problems closely resemble those of US readers, and involve things like family squabbles, jealousy and overwork. We don't need the author's empathy because we recognize these things ourselves. But when he's traveling in poorer nations, and complains (for example) about Chinese people re-using their tea leaves and jostling him, he does not seem to understand what cramming over a billion people into a few hundred square miles actually means.

I really don't understand what he's trying to do here. I hate to be cynical, but at times I believed he was simply writing for money, and didn't really care what he committed to the page. The first half is overwhelmingly concerned with drug smuggling and organized crime. Things start to improve in the second half, but I finally gave up when -- are you kidding me? -- we get a blow-by-blow, sentence-by-sentence recitation, in Spanish with translations provided, of a Spanish class he's taking with a handful of other students. This is stupifyingly dull and -- back to empathy -- I can't imagine why he feels any readers would care about his mastery of how to speak to bus drivers, or how the other six or seven students in the class were doing.

There are so many good books to read about Mexico (my own favorites behind the spoiler) -- why waste time on this one?

A Visit to Don Otavio, Mexico: Some Travels and Some Travelers There, Mexican Enough and Cutting for Sign

[Dax · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his latest in a long line of travel writing, Theroux succeeds in destroying the stereotypes of Mexico. It is through his rich interactions with locals, students and activists that Theroux is able to illustrate the complicated cultures to be found throughout Mexico. As Theroux says, it is a culture of contradictions: and it makes for an interesting read.

A nice mixture of history, sociology, literary critique and political commentary. Theroux keeps his political opinions largely to himself excepting his support and adoration of the Zapatista movement. What makes this an excellent work is Theroux's obvious passion for the people and cultures he encounters on his trip. I've heard others comment on Theroux's "grumpiness" in some of his other travel writing- I found the opposite in this instance.

Highly recommended and a timely read given the border politics we find in the US today.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heart-rending travelogue on Mexico. Paul Theroux presents multiple views and a large variety of people from this intriguing country. Mexico contains multitudes.

Paul Theroux started his journey by traversing the Mexico – U.S. border from the state of California to the Gulf of Mexico (Texas). Along this route he encounters migrants in shelters on both sides of the border. Many of these shelters were run by Catholic missionaries. He also comes across border patrol forces and attends a meeting where there is a face-off between the border patrol agents and those sympathetic to the plight of the migrants.

Many Mexicans will know someone (a relative or close friend) who has spent significant time in the U.S. (as in years) – and they themselves may have attempted the border crossing. In fact, crossing the border and remaining in the U.S. was relatively easy until the Clinton years when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act was introduced in 1996. (I recently saw an article in the New York Times which was “’We are Desperate’ for More Immigrants a Top Trump Aide Says” – for future economic growth).

Paul Theroux explores the underbelly of Mexico – namely the cartels and the extreme violence they continually perpetuate – often in collusion with government and local police and the Mexican army (special forces often join the cartel groups). There is a lack of security felt by all those who live in Mexico – they only feel safe with family and close friends who provide a defense from predatory bandits and an untrustworthy government.

Page 113 (my book)

The obstacles in Mexican society range from… mass murder to serious hardships to mundane nuisances. You might ask: Why would a young mother of small children – like many I met at the border – take risks of hopping the fence and enduring privations of hiking in the desert just to labor for minimum wages in (as some told me) in a meat-packing plant or hotel? One obvious answer is that the risks and privations in Mexico are much worse that those endured in a border crossing.

The author spent time in Mexico City where, when driving, he twice was involved in a shake-down to make a significant dollar (no pesos) contribution to a policeman. There is also an interesting discussion on the 43 missing students who disappeared.

After Mexico City he goes south which is the most impoverished area of Mexico. A wide range of land and people are encountered. I did not realize that Mexico had such a large and diverse native population for whom Spanish is a second language. He visits Oaxaca and attends a Zapatista meeting. He describes a migrant shelter in Southern Mexico for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The conditions at the southern Mexican border are atrocious for these migrants where sex trafficking and enslavement are common.

This book gives us many perspectives of Mexico – from the borders, to teeming Mexico City whose population some put at over 20 million and is often a destination for migrants, to resort areas like Puerto Vallarta which contains many Mexican tourists, to the southern remote areas with a large and independent native population.

And a note and complaint that I have remarked on before – why do many new books published not contain an index? Also, a map would have been very useful in following the authors trajectory.

Page 93-94

One encounter in particular stayed in my memory, like an apparition I had been privileged to experience: Maria, in the Comedor in Nogales [a hostel for migrants on the Mexican side of Nogales], who had related to me how she had left her three small children in Oaxaca. Abandoned by her husband, destitute, with no chance of supporting her family, she had left her children in the care of her mother and crossed the border with four other desperate women.

“I wanted to find work as a cleaner in a hotel,” she said softly.
Separated from the other women in the Arizona desert, she’d become lost, was arrested, roughed up, jailed, and then deported.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dec 6, 430am ~~ Review asap.

Dec 10, 830pm ~~ I have tried for a few days now to decide what to write in this review and I always end up frustrated and speechless.

I have read a few of Theroux's books in the past, and enjoyed them. But since then I have grown up a bit, experienced life for myself outside the borders of the United States.

I was very disappointed in Theroux's attitude and his habit of quoting so many other books that at times I was not sure whose book I was really reading. Later he takes an entire chapter to sharply criticize many Mexican authors merely because he does not believe they have written their books properly.

He missed an opportunity to completely explain a phrase from a protest banner denouncing the killers of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa who disappeared. He translated the banner as saying 'The Murderers Are in The Pines" without adding the necessary clarification for anyone who is not familiar with Mexico that The Pines (Los Pinos) is the name of the house where the president of the country lived at the the time this book was written. (Current president AMLO, elected in 2018, chose to live in the Palacio Nacional instead.)

He has a ridiculously misleading line at the end of a few paragraphs about WalMart. Now, I certainly agree that WalMart bulldozed its way into the country and has not paid taxes since then and so on, but in 2018, the last time I was in Teotihuacan at the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, there was no WalMart store with its "obscene size swelling over the pyramids". The WalMart is a mile away in the town of San Juan Teotihuacan. That is bad enough, because I have always thought it a crying shame to have a WalMart anywhere outside of the United States, but a mile away is very different from 'swelling over'.

He had moments, though, I will grant him that. Sometimes he came almost close to understanding the heart of the people. But mostly for me he sounded like the classic stuck-up tourist who felt himself to be on some higher level of life than nearly everyone around him.

I expect much more than that from a travel writer these days.

Mexico is too complex to understand after one road trip. After eight years of living in the town where my husband was born I still have much to learn. There are problems, there always have been and very likely always will be, just as in many other countries in the world, even (gasp) the USA.

I'm not sure that is something a voyeuristic traveler who does not want to stay very long in one place can understand. And I am not calling names. If you ever read the book, see page 190. He uses the phrase about himself.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the remote state of Oaxaca, a land of mountains and desert, traversed primarily on foot by the locals, there is an isolated pueblo, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca. Coixtlahuaca. Not even a Spanish word. It's Mixtec and means “plain of snakes.” For Theroux it's a perfect representation of Mexico. On one hand, the Aztec plumed serpent god Quetzalcoatl; on the other hand, the cohabiter of a rugged landscape. They are numerous (over 26 species), and like the people either ignored or reviled by the State.

Nearly eighty, Theroux is dejected. Will this be his last trip? Has he lost relevance? By the end, his spirits have been uplifted. He has spoken to countless villagers, almost all veterans of both legal and illegal border crossings, become friends with some of the most vibrant cultural figures in Mexico, evaded physical brutality not from murderous cartel members but from venal police, learned colloquial Mexican from an intensive three-weeks-long class, and addressed a conclave of secretive social justice activists, the Zapatistas. Mexico respects the aged he declares. He is an hombre de juicio, a man of judgment. In the language class he asks to be addressed as “Don Pablo”; because he is a man of experiencias de vida (life experiences) his teacher suggests.

We view Mexico through a lens of experience as well – historical experience. There is a Borderland Culture, disrupted and reconfigured by the contradictions of American paranoia and greed. Ever tightening border security (the 1993 aftermath of the first World Trade Center bombing, Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, and NAFTA that same year) boosted agribusiness and destroyed small farms, contributing to mass migration to border towns where workers vied for maquiladoras jobs that paid $4.00 a day. Legal Mexicans crossed the border daily to buy clothing and appliances manufactured in Asia. Americans entered Mexico not as tourists but for medical services and pharmaceuticals. In Nogales the author jokes that they should rename Canal Street as “Root Canal Street.” Because housing in Mexico is cheap, many live there and commute to El Paso or Laredo for work.

Illegal drug trafficking has morphed into violent warfare among big cartels, aided by local police, the military, and government officials. One resident even points to a direct correlation between murder rates and an increased military presence in his city. The cartels, it turns out, are an easy target for deflecting attention from rampant government corruption. I was surprised by other revelations: gun purchasing is illegal in Mexico; the penalty for human trafficking is less than for drug trafficking; currently most illegal migrants are not Mexicans but Central Americans; currently the most coveted customers are Chinese and east Indian migrants who are able to afford the $27,000 a head charged by the coyotes. (The going rate for Mexicans and Central Americans is by comparison only a few thousand dollars).

The hinterlands provide a further illustration of the long memory which Theroux expresses in a quote from the English essayist and critic, V.S. Pritchett: “The past of a place survives in its poor.” (p.109) A stark example is the ongoing and highly visible protests over the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teacher's college in 2014. It's six years later. The government's spin was that the cartels were responsible. Everyone knows both the murders and the cover-up were effected by a combination of local police, the military, government officials and cartel interests.

Even casual students of Spanish will find this book rewarding. Theroux is an adept speaker and even knows that the correct response to a police shakedown is the phrase “What can we do about this?”the polite acknowledgement that a bribe will be demanded. Throughout the book he repeats Mexican idioms and their translations. Nevertheless, he submits to the tortures of a three week long intensive language class in Oaxaca. The conversations are relentless personal interrogations, e.g. What do you like best and least about your job? The answers are often evasive untruths chosen for their simplicity. Many colloquialisms are derived from Nahuatl. For example, Tlayuda is the term for a type of taco, a Oaxacan specialty. Mexico itself is a mosaic of languages as well as subcultures. Sixty-eight languages and 350 dialects are spoken there. In the village of Huaynpum, the residents speak Zapotec, not Spanish.

Another unexpected delight is Theroux's essay length critique of Mexican literature. Magical realism is a particular target because it evades the devastating reality of Mexico's desperate and impoverished rural dwellers. The preference is for a cosmopolitan outlook, reflecting the values and desires of Mexico City and the great urban centers of the world. Theroux notes that the most popular novel among Mexican writers is Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo. Theroux's assessment: “Its handling of time – fluid, the sort literary critics call Faulknerian – and its blurred meanings infuse the narrative with an opacity some scholars believe to confer a mythical quality. The novel is squarely in the tradition of fictional obliquity, of the (God help us) 'difficult' novel in need of explanation – you don't read it for pleasure, you study it for a term paper.” (p326)

I have read two other books by this author. In my opinion, this was the most engaging, perhaps because I now live in the southwest and am intrigued by its historical influence. Mexico and the United States share a fraught history. This book provides a significant window into the past and present of that history.

NOTES:
Puebla, noted for its Talavera ceramics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaver...
Background on David Alfaro Siqueiros, who is Mexico's most famous muralist, along with Orozco and Rivera: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/si...
Theroux's article on Francisco Toledo in Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-c...

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey was an intriguing and captivating journey weaving back and forth along the Mexican and United States border and the border towns, and then extensively throughout Mexico's back roads deep into the country, by renowned world travel writer for well over forty years, Paul Theroux. Theroux begins by recounting Jack Kerouac's experience in giving an elderly man a lift in the state of Oaxaca. When he dropped him off, he asked the name of the pueblo and was told it was San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca. Questioning the meaning of Coixtlahuaca, Kerouac was told, "El llano de los serpientes," "the plain of snakes." And so begins Theroux's epic journey relying on vast literary references throughout history to enhance the experience of this unique culture and its many contrasts. Theroux, now in his late-seventies and feeling stalled in his writing, was inspired by the plight of the migrants and the risks they took to embark on his own journey throughout Mexico. Theroux is unflinching in his writing about the blatant racism running rampant in the current administration regarding Mexico and its people. It was a beautiful and diverse book where I delighted in all of his experiences as well as the Mexican people we came to know on this journey as Mexico has long been one of our favorite destinations.

"But I have not found a traveler or commentator, foreign or Mexican, who has been able to sum up Mexico, and maybe such an ambition is futile and dated enterprise. The country eludes the generalizer and the summarizer; it is too big, too complex, too diverse in its geography and culture, too messy and multilinqual--the Mexican government recognizes 68 different languages and 350 dialects."

[Daniel Villines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was exceedingly personal for me. For one, I’ve been to Mexico a number of times. I have always suspected that the real Mexico, the real Mexicans, were located mere steps from my beach-front resort or cruise ship pier. However, I never wanted to venture those few steps and see what Mexico was truly like. But more importantly, I am Mexican, born from a second-generation mother who spoke only Spanish when she started elementary school. On the Plain of Snakes took me across the street and showed me the life of the Mexicans from which I come.

Beyond the personal impacts, Theroux performs a more universal service. He destroys the stereotypes of the last decade that have demonized an entire nation of people so that others in our own country could be manipulated through fear. Theroux's observations allow his readers to see typical Mexicans throughout this veiled land and shows them to be virtuous, hardworking, family-loving, and pragmatic. The irony is that conservatives of our own nation default to their demonization while in truth, the cultural kinship shared among Mexicans in their own communities is the conservative vision of neighbors helping neighbors in the absence of government.

And yes, there is indeed some real danger. It was once pointed out to me that Mexico could serve as the ideal model for American-conservative-capitalism. Business is pure and workers are free agents devoid of any social protections. It’s an economy founded purely on supply and demand. Even government is a part of this dream. After all, a bribe, at its core, is just another business transaction. Again, the irony is that pro-business (anti-socialist) conservatives in the US demonize people that are living the life of their advocations.

The demand for drugs, primarily US demand, activates the raw capitalist mechanisms in Mexico. Entrepreneurs harness that demand and transport drugs to the border. It’s this capitalist activity and its inherent violence that allows our own conservative politicians to cast the taint of drug dealing on to all Mexican people. Paul Theroux stops this disillusion. However, the final irony of On the Plain of Snakes is that such a book will never be read by those that need to know the truth of Mexico and Mexicans most of all.

[Djj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Theroux, the celebrated travel writer, drives the length of the US/Mexican border, going back and forth between the two countries, to observe and document the impact of NAFTA, the "mafia" (how Mexicans refer to the cartels according to Theroux) and illegal immigration on the lives of ordinary Mexicans. He then drives to Mexico City to lead a writing seminar. In the last half of the book, he travels to Oaxaca and Chiapas to observe the lives and villages of the people who make the long dangerous trip north to the US, crossing the border as illegal immigrants. He also takes a Spanish Class in Oaxaca city.

There are two aspects of this book at war with each other:

The travelogue and documentary aspects of the book are interesting and perhaps even important as he brings to a gringo audience the stories, lives and poverty of the Mexican indigenous peoples who generally make the trip North, and who are exploited by multinational corporations in their border factories. Wages can be as low as $4-$6/day. It's outrageous. And even as a pure travel diary, he documents aspects of indigenous Mexican life that are mostly overlooked by tourists out to drink themselves silly at all-inclusive resorts (hey that person handing you your drink that you're not tipping is literally being paid $6 today). One message of the book is stop and think about Mexico's poor; learn about them; try to see their lives; understand what is happening in the world. It's a message I always try to take to heart when travelling and I really sympathized with it, even as I recognize my own privilege in this world.

BUT, Theroux is such a condescending pompous ass it's hard to feel any sympathy for him even though he seems to want us to feel bad for him, with the existential crisis he says he's having with the state of the US, his age, his own relevancy. At various times in the book he attacks Mexican Literature (and even Latin American magical realism; he decries Gabriel Garcia Marquez for god's sake) for largely ignoring Mexico's indigenous peoples, even launching a personal attack on Carlos Fuentes (whom I haven't read) and weirdly takes a swipe at Susan Sontag. He gets all huffy when asked about his favorite book in Spanish Class, and looks incredulously at a fellow student who asks him if he's read Dan Brown (we're supposed to understand that the guy is clearly an idiot for not knowing who Theroux is and for liking Dan Brown); he insists on being called Don Pablo in the class, which is like asking me asking someone to call me Honorable David (i.e, "Don" is an earned title not one you ask for, similar to "SAN" or "SAMA" in Japan).

Other than Mexico's indigenous, the people who work with them, and intellectuals who show him respect, he shows contempt to anyone remotely middle class and/or not as aware of the Mexican issues of the day he's most interested in. Only Theroux understands Mexico; he decries popular clichés of Mexico only to make broad statements about Mexicans and Mexico himself.

To top things off, he ends the book at a kind of conference of leading Zapatistas in Chiapas, including Subcommandante Marcos. At which Theroux declares himself to be entirely sympathetic to their cause, but ALSO declares his special relationship to them as...wait for it...his grandmother was an American Indian. Indeed, in the last short section of the book he even says he's driving back to the US taking the same route as the migrants...but in his car, and stopping at a small, exclusive resort to rest. Huh?

I mean, it's unbelievable that this man, who lives in Hawaii and Cape Cod, and whose wife runs a Luxury Travel/PR firm in Hawaii, who lives a life of incredible privilege, would have us believe he identifies with Mexico's indigenous peoples, trying to claim high moral ground as his Grandmother was an American Indian? C'mon. By making the poverty and plight of the Zapotecan people all about himself, and somehow reflective of his own existential crisis, he ruins, with his narcissism, what could have been an important document of the migrant crisis.

So 2 stars: 5 four the travel aspects of the book, and -3 for his incredible pomposity.

PS as an addendum to this (added several months after my original review) promotional material for the book says very famous photographer Steve McCurry accompanied Theroux on his travels and indeed the book is illustrated with McCurry's photos. Not ONCE does Theroux mention McCurry and the book makes it sound like Theroux is always alone. So weird.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Theroux began his motor trip by weaving back and forth on the US - Mexican border. Then he traveled south observing Mexico's diverse communities. Throughout the trip he sees how Mexicans, poor and unprotected, live on a “plain of snakes”.

As is typical of Theroux's travel books there are no restaurant reviews and there is not much on tourist sites. In their stead there are interviews with people he encounters and a few people he seeks out for their local knowledge. He writes of his daily experiences of driving, border crossing, and meals with food covered as part of the culture. This is all enriched by the many books he cites that add to your understanding of the culture, landscape and history of what he encounters.

In the early part of the trip, Theroux compares life on one side of the border with life in the city/place in the other country, a walking distance away. He talks with immigration officials, activists and border crossing commuters. There is a comparison of wages and the standard of living, as well as how the culture here has changed since NAFTA and 9/11.

Throughout the book are the stories of people he randomly met who illegally crossed the border to work in the US. Some had to return because they were caught en route and others who were deported after many years. Many returned to meet a family need. Many have children or other family remaining in the US. Up until the 1990's it is fairly easy for individuals to engineer crossing or hire a coyote for under $1000. Now it costs thousands, may not be successful and could cost you your life.

Another constant in this book are warnings of the dangers of bandits, gangs or of the police who want bribes and can and do abduct. You learn how police shakedowns work - Theroux has 3 of them and each time he improves his response. There are many examples of gang/cartel cruelty and how difficult it is to avoid it. Roads can be in very poor condition or clogged by traffic or protestors. In one city, warned of the dangers of driving in certain areas, he hired a cab, the terrified driver followed his request to go through gang territory and something like a red light court yard.

In Mexico City he teaches a creative writing course where you meet the interesting students and get summaries of their short stores. They reluctantly show him a shrine for evil spirits, which he later finds to be more common than expected throughout the country. Later in his trip he's a student, himself, learning/improving Spanish and showing conversational exercises can be difficult for someone in his position. Several pages stand alone as a critique of Latin American fiction - he is not an admirer of magical realism.

The highlights, for me, were the visits to the southern indigenous communities where dying languages exist side by side with well spoken English. He meets people eking out a living making crafts or raising goats. Most interesting were the Zapatista territories… the people, their festivals, their outlook. Amid all the poverty these people are inspiring. He spent some time at a university that works to build support for a better life by helping people to understand their situation and take what control they can of their lives. In the South, he also talks with those who have helped Central American migrants fleeing violence and poverty which is similar to that in Mexico.

The text is engaging throughout. It gives you the benefit of Theroux’s years of travel, his people skills and his literary knowledge. The book needs a map. The color photos are OK but there are so many others that would be more representative of the trip. It is a book to be savored, perhaps one community or episode at a time.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The image that Mexico wants to portray of their country is very different to the reality that exists. It is a country that is in the grip of drug gangs who commit all sorts of murders and atrocities with little or no enforcement from the police and army; in fact, in a lot of cases, the police are another arm of the gangs. Given the violence that permeates the country and the border region in particular, there are 30,00 murders a year there, it is probably not the most sensible place to travel, but that has never stopped Paul Theroux.

He begins his journey in the town of Nogales a town of two halves. It is split by a 40-foot high steel fence that separates the United States of America from Mexico and is a microcosm of each country. The US side is prosperous and the Mexican side, run down and impoverished. It fills with people either hoping to make the crossing from south to north or who have been returned from America and have nowhere else to go now.

‘What is the meaning of Coixlahuaca?’
‘El llana de las serpientes.’
The plain of snakes.

He is not there as a tourist though, he wants to try and understand what is the pull of his country to these people and gain an insight into why they risk so much in the hands of coyotes while walking through the deserts of Arizona. To do this, he wants to meet the real people of the border towns, sometimes by taking his American plated car which has its own set of risks as he finds out when he is stopped by an overzealous policeman. He realises that this is not always the most sensible thing to do and often parks it in a secure place and takes the bus instead.

It seems that ever since the border at Reynosa, 1400 miles away, I had been travelling on a royal road through a plain of snakes.

He teaches a writing course for a short while and makes friends with those learning from him. In Oaxaca he becomes a student once again, this time learning Mexican Spanish alongside residents of the town who still maintain their independence from the rest of the country. It feels like a place he could live in. Travelling further into Mexico, he stops in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas where he meets Zapatistas who are trying to force political change in the region.

One of the greatest thrills in travel is to know the satisfaction of arrival and to find oneself among friends.

I have a lot of Paul Theroux’s books (including a signed one) but as yet haven’t read that many of them for a variety of reasons, the top one being that I have so many other books… So far I have read two, this and Deep South. In that book, he was travelling around the southern states of America to try to understand the people of that region in his own country. In here he has popped over the border to discover more about the country that has been the subject of quite a lot of vindictiveness from the previous administration in the White House, Mexico.

Theroux is prepared to meet the locals in the way that suits him best by spending time in their towns and mixing with them. He is a sensitive and perceptive traveller and this comes across in this book as he describes the towns, people and food he experiences each day her is there. He does not seek to judge them, it is a troubled country, that is suffering from gang violence as well as being fundamentally corrupt. Most of the population are just trying to live to support their families, even if that means earning money in America for a portion of their lives.

[William Koon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Theroux’s On the Plain of Snakes reminds one of his last major travel work Deep South. It sprawls. It repeats. It wanders.

Throughout he is on the verge of physical danger; he is shaken down frequently by the police and officials. His notes on the cartels and equally dangerous government corruption are spot on.

His disputation on the country is as wide and unfocused as the country he describes. Although he is writing a travel journal, he takes many time outs to discuss the people he meets. This would be fine, but he seems to tell the same story over and over. Mostly he asks people if they have ever been across the border and what their experiences were. Their answers are mostly repetive.

He pauses –for example—to go to a conference in Tucson. He pauses to teach a class and to discuss his students a bit too intimately. ((He does insert a short story as well.) In addition, the word “filler” would be generous. The 448 pages could have been reduced by a third. Oh, yes, there are high points, and the highest is his disparagement of Carlos Fuente. It rivals his comments upon Naipaul in his book Sir Vidia. Here he makes cogent comments about Naipaul as well. He discusses a wide range of Mexican and European writers who have written about Mexico.

This book is not first rate Theroux, but his mark is on many pages.

[Rob Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't say this lightly, but in his seventy-sixth year, at least among his travel books Theroux has written his masterpiece. It's deeply compassionate, insightful, and amazingly timely. It's an extraordinarily rich journey. He's made me see Mexico in completely new ways and, as usual, sprinkled in bits of his own life and history that allow me to see his whole body of work differently.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4 well-traveled stars

I was so glad to get a chance to read an eArc copy of Paul Theroux’s latest work about his extensive travels in Mexico the last few years. I value Theroux’s perspective on a nation that I have traveled in quite a bit during the last few decades. I read with sadness about the economic, political, and cartel forces that continue to make life in Mexico a hardscrabble and dangerous life for the poor and indigenous populations.

Theroux takes us on a wide-ranging journey. He first focuses on the US-Mexican border. He jumps back and forth the border at multiple spots. He describes the change in the border, the border crossing process and the border towns over the last 50 years or so. Then he drives an inland route down to Mexico City where he stops to teach a class and explore Mexico City with his students. He eventually travels south to Oaxaca, and the far southern state of Chiapas. He visits many small villages along the way.

Theroux’s strength is his clear description of the history and events that led up to the current situation. He is at his strongest when recounting stories from the Mexicans that he meets along his travels. He meets the good, the bad, and the ugly while visiting Mexico. He does not sugar coat the bad and the ugly, and he does not discount the good. Mexico is a complex country with longstanding economic and political issues. As a US citizen, these issues are largely foreign to me. This book was a clear-eyed yet sobering read about a country that I have spent many happy months traveling in.

I’d recommend this for the armchair traveler, and anyone interested in how history and recent events have shaped the United States’ southern neighbor.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and the author, Paul Theroux for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Donna Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Theroux has been a successful travel writer for a very long time, but he is new to me. Lucky me, I read this free, thanks to Net Galley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It’s for sale now.

The first thing that took my notice was that this is a gutsy writer. Though he’s in his late seventies, he hops in his personal vehicle and motors south to Mexico, and then all over that nation independently, venturing into out-of-the-way spaces, mostly eschewing the usual tourist haunts that draw the spring break crowd from the US and other parts. Over and over again, locals explain to him that this road, or that, or the other is very dangerous right now; sometimes he revises his route; sometimes he takes the route but at a different time; and sometimes he goes anyway, but takes somebody with him. What he doesn’t do is go home early, or store his car somewhere and follow a tour guide around. I stand in awe.

Theroux approaches his journey as a researcher, rather than as a tourist advisor. He interviews countless individuals, even learning a little of one of the indigenous languages—in addition to Spanish-- in order to communicate. I give up trying to trace his route, instead just going with the narrative as it unspools.

I have to tell you, this is a tome. I might never have finished it had I relied exclusively on my review copy. I recognized it would be a hefty commitment to get through all of it, so once again, I turned to Seattle Bibliocommons for the audio version. I found it went much faster once I was able to do something else with my hands as I listened. Joseph Balderrama is a wonderful reader, and I quickly found myself absorbed into the journey, as if I were an unseen passenger.

Theroux takes us through the ordeal at the US/Mexico border, which was a nightmare during the time this was written, during the Trump administration. (If you have a MAGA cap in your closet, you may not enjoy this book.) He listens to Mexican citizens that live near enough to the border that they can actually see it from their homes, or from their workplaces. Some of them have lived in Mexico but worked in Texas for a long time, and the hardship they experience once the rules are changed is dreadful. And the insight I gain from listening to his interviews with people there about immigration to the US is most enlightening.

The most amazing thing to me is the way the cartels and the Mexican police force overlap, and in a number of places are exactly the same people! He describes multiple shakedowns by traffic cops while he is driving. It seems that the state pays its cops next to nothing, and so in order for them to support themselves, (particularly, we assume, those not being paid by cartels also,) they are permitted to stop anyone they believe has some money, and essentially intimidate them into a bribe. But it’s not complete chaos: once a driver has been shaken down, they are entitled to a receipt for the money they have had to forfeit so that another cop up the road cannot do the same thing.

The one tourist area Theroux passes through is Puerto Vallarta, which also happens to be the only place in Mexico that I have visited. About ten years lapsed between my visit—a very pleasant one—and Theroux’s, and I was saddened to learn how unsafe it has become, and how badly the locals, who were mostly middle class when I was there, have it now.

There are a number of fascinating passages, and I learned a lot. One village is awash with what sounds like a new sort of trans woman, (new to an American from Seattle, at least,) and another where the handmade sandals are finished with a jaw dropping method. There’s one very poor village where earthquakes occur so frequently that most of the homes are no longer standing, but many people won’t sleep indoors anyway for fear of being crushed to death. No aid from the Mexican government or any international body has ever reached them. Those people are on their own, and they are suffering.

Perhaps the sweetest parts have to do with the friendships that the writer forms with the people he meets there. In particular, I like the interviews with his artist and author friends.

For those like myself that approach this with general interest, I’d call this a four star book. My stamina is greater than most, yet as much as I enjoyed it, it did feel a little bit lengthy. For those with a particular interest in the socioeconomic, cultural, and political realities of Mexico, it’s five stars, hands down.

Recommended to those with an interest in this field.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I'm abandoning this one, DNF-ing it. The book doesn't hold my interest. The writing is egocentric and limited. I've even tried just reading a chapter at a time but no, it aint working.

I think the book should be re titled, A Mexican Road Trip: It's All About Me (Yo!)

[Iñaki Amuchastegui · Rating 1 out of 5]

Being a Mexican myself, I found this to be a very difficult read. Not because it exposes some of the realities and hardships of living in Mexico. But because for all his travels, it seems like he only wants to see the picture he already has of the country before he goes there (as shown by the fist 40 pages just relating various murders and drug crimes), ignoring reality, and showing a majorly pedantic attitude. Let me explain:

-To him, every Mexican is either a drug dealer, or an illegal immigrant to the US. Yes, many are. But of 130 million, the vast majority of people fall in neither category. They are hardly ever mentioned.

-He claims that we call drug dealers "mafia" because we are afraid to call them narcs. Bullshit!! We call them "narcos" or "carteles" and while we are wary of them, we don't shy away from the name. I have never heard a Mexican call them mafia.

-He insists on being called "Don Pablo". For us, Don is a term of utmost respect, for a leader of the community who is involved and supporting it. It is a name earned and given by the community, not demanded by someone, specially not a traveller. It gives the impression of that person feeling like he's more important than the others.

-He asks many personal questions to complete strangers, but gets offended when his Spanish teacher asks him to tell him about his day, as Spanish practice. He feels like is a private question so he makes something up.

-He makes a lot of mistakes with the language, for example "los piños", "tamalitas", "Ottavio", "Herman", etc. I was willing to give him a pass, since he is not a native speaker, but when he roast DH Lawrence for misspelling an indigineous name, I found it shocking he wouldn't even get a Mexican editor to look into some of these things. He doubts every story told to him, he double checks on facts, routes and time lines to dispute first hand accounts of migrants. Yet, he makes up facts as calling San Luis Potosí, "Potosí". Nobody calls it that, we call it "San Luis".

-Granted, it is a very corrupt country, and the police is often the culprit. But three times he breaks the law, and knowlingly , he up and offers to bribe the police, only to later blame the Mexicans cops for "squeezing him"

I could go on, but would take forever. He gets one star for actually driving through all those areas and seeing small places off the beaten track, but if you want to understand better what México is, this book is certainly not going to help. It will only show you a man with a very inflated opinion of himself, and a very limited idea of a very large country. So self centered is he, that he actually brags about giving a poor cook a 20 cent tip. On the plain of snakes, the largest one, is an introduced species.

[Jypsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

On The Plain Of Snakes is such a relevant read. Paul Theroux is one of my favorite travel writers, and his latest offering continues his profound observations and harsh truths. Obviously, there are serious and deadly problems along the United States and Mexico border. This book is sharp, insightful and disturbing. Theroux tells the truth, even when so many would rather not hear it. I highly recommend this book for anyone with even a slight intrest in the welfare of those who cross and protect the border. It's a look at a different place and people who are almost hard to imagine. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book! I thought I knew something about Mexico, having lived there for several years (in cities mostly) and after taking many trips off the beaten path (including some of the remote places he traveled). But I never delved as deep as Paul did into the culture and the rural people. He has filled a million gaps in my knowledge and appreciation.

This is my third Theroux book and I look forward to more.

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Porfirio Diaz, Mexico’s erstwhile dictator, and the man who most defined Mexico during the last three decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th (a time known as the “Porfiriato”), is widely credited with making the remark “Poor Mexico, so far from from God, so close to the United States”. It is one vision of Mexico, this one that Diaz put forth, one that contends that Mexico is (often for the worse) chiefly defined by what goes on along and beyond its Northern border. In a sense, this is true. Weaving in and out of Mexico and the US through some of the main border cities: San Ysidro in California and Tijuana in Baja California; the switched portmanteau cities of Calexico and Mexicali; Nogales Sonora and Nogales Arizona; El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua; Laredo, Texas and Colombia, Nueva Leon; Roma, Texas and Ciudad Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, and so on and so forth, Theroux shows how so much of the cultural conversation about Mexico is shaped by this border.

Every year, millions of people cross this border. Some are American citizens of Mexican ancestry, many of whom live in Mexico or have family there, and who come to the U.S. to work before returning home in the evenings or over the weekends. Others are Mexican and Central American immigrants - those fleeing war and poverty, from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua; crossing into the U.S. clandestinely with the “help” of coyotes, navigating treacherous nighttime walks in the desert or a swim across the Rio Grande. And yet others are Mexican immigrants, often the well-off ones, visas in hand, openly coming in through the border posts. Many are tourists, often American, crossing the border into Mexico. And finally, there are the undocumented immigrants from India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria etc. (so called “special interests migrants” by U.S. ICE) who fly to Mexico and then attempt to cross into the U.S. from there.

On the American side, the crossing is quite hassle free, lasting as little as five minutes. On the way back, one may, even as an American citizen, spend hours. The point, one magnified by Donald Trump, being: that Mexicans, many of whom are “unwanted”, want desperately to come to the U.S., supposedly to stay permanently. Valeria Luiselli’s book, “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions”, in very beautiful prose, draws on her experience as an interpreter for Central American Immigrants, as well as on her own experience in attempting to obtain permanent residency in the U.S., to examine the human face of this border crossing. As Theroux notes however, there is a positionality issue: the disconnect between Luiselli’s own background and those of the Central American immigrants she profiles makes it difficult to lump these stories together. What can she, a cosmopolitan, highly educated, upper middle class immigrant daughter of a diplomat, who legally moved to New York City to dance and then pursue a PhD at Columbia but now struggles to remain there tell us, in all honesty, about the lives of poor, mostly indigenous campesinos still stuck at the border, their children in cages?

Driving along cities in Mexico, close to the American border but not quite on it, the presence of the United States is perhaps just as stark. NAFTA, promulgated on January 1st 1994, led to many American companies coming to Mexico in a bid to take advantage of cheaper labour costs. Mexican cities like Monterrey in Nuevo Leon and Guadalajara in Jalisco owe, to a large extent, their booming economies to NAFTA.

But NAFTA also had the worst effect on the poorest states in Mexico: Chiapas (from where I am currently writing this), Oaxaca, Puebla. These, the states with the most indigenous populations, largely made up of Campesinos, small tradesmen - weavers, handiworkers, etc. had their economies and means of livelihood overrun. From the destruction of native crops through the introduction of GMO products by companies like Monsanto to the mass dispossession of land that occurred afterwards, NAFTA has been terrible for these people. It is therefore not surprising to realize that the vast majority of Mexicans attempting to cross the border into the U.S. are from these states.

And then, the gangs. The Zetas (the most powerful and - or, because - most brutal), the Juarez Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, The Jalisco New Generation, the Knights Templars, La Familia Michoacán, to name just a few of the major ones. The operations of these cartels are largely affected by Mexico’s northern neighbour. The drugs smuggled by the cartels have as their destination the United States. So do the human beings smuggled. The intense violence that occurs as the gangs fight for territorial control, sometimes resulting in as many as 30,000 Mexican lives being lost in a year, is a direct consequence of the gangs fighting to control the U.S. markets.

In this sense, Mr. Diaz was right: Poor Mexico, so close to the United States.

But there are other paradigms with which to (attempt to) view the country. In his work, “Mexico Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization”, the anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalia outlines two Mexicos. One, the imaginary Mexico (“imaginary” - not because it is nonexistent, but rather because it is a view of Mexico that seeks to flatten the diversity of Mexico into a single idea of development, ignoring all the ways in which many indigenous Mexicans live their lives without reference to it at all); marked by outward contact (all the way from the Spanish conquests). This is a Mexico well on its path towards a western civilizational program. Think of Mexico City, one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, with nearly 22 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area. With its GDP (2020) of $411 billion, Mexico City Alone would be the World’s 28th largest economy. Then think of most depictions of Mexico, even of its small towns, in the media: marked either by the mestizo - or by what my friend Andres calls “whitexicans” - privileged people who do not understand the “real” Mexico, as Batalia sees it. This is the imaginary Mexico.

On the other hand, there is what Batalia calls the “real” or the “profound” Mexico, hearkening back to Mexico’s Mesoamerican civilization as typified by its indigenous peoples. Despite attempts to subjugate it and bash it into westernization, Mexico profundo still remains, at least according to Batalia, the mode through which the majority of “real” Mexicans understand the world and organize human life. We encounter Mexico profundo at various parts of Theroux’s journey: campesinos, market women, the girls he gives a lift to in rural Oaxaca.

Most notably, however, México profundo is seen in the Zapatistas of Chiapas, led by Subcomandante Galeano (formerly Marcos). On the same day that NAFTA was promulgated, Galeano and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), made up almost entirely of indigenous Mexicans, occupied the seven Chiapan towns of Huixtan, Oxchuc, Ocosingo, Chanal, Altamirano, and Rancho Nuevo. Notably, they also freed all the prisoners in the major town of San Cristobal de los Casas. The main aim of the EZLN was to initiate a revolution against the Mexican government in a bid to halt the spread of what they termed neoliberalism. The Zapatistas believe(d) that economic globalization, as typified by NAFTA, was a system that would lead to no more than the exploitation of the indigenous peoples of the world. History has proven them right, with the toll that NAFTA has taken on the indigenous communities of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Puebla.

Neozapatismo is difficult to define in usual ideological terms (and indeed, the Zapatistas resist this), but essentially, their ideology constitutes a syncretic mix of Marxism-Leninism (at least initially), libertarian-socialism and anarcho-communism. While the Zapatistas were eventually pushed away from the towns they occupied, they now control a sizable chunk of the Chiapan mountains, existing in an uneasy truce with the Mexican government. There, they have constructed schools and hospitals, communal farms and strong welfare systems. They practice a robust form of direct democracy, and are a model for many leftist groups around the world in how to resist oppressive state action and in how to form horizontally autonomous communities.

Ultimately, it is impossible to “summarize” a country, let alone one as large and as diverse as Mexico. Here, as elsewhere that actual people live, real life resists academic theorization. Mexico is to be found in the works of its great artists - Francisco Toledo, Yoshua Okon, Guillermo Olguin; in its great writers - Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes (who Theroux does not think highly of). Mexico is also to be found in the graffiti and murals around its cities, in poetry slams and street music; in its most enchanting museums - such as the museum of anthropology in Mexico City- as well as its dreariest slums; in its many saints and variations to religions - Jesus Malverde - patron saint of the narchos, Santa Muerte - Mexico’s fastest growing religion, also heavily championed by narchos and criminals, catholicism, the various indigenous ways of worship - and all the syncretic mixtures that arise from all these. The story of Mexico is the story of migration and its contacts with the U.S., and it is also the story of its millions of indigenous people who go about their daily lives without thinking of the U.S. at all. It is in the faces of the people - white, mestizo, indigenous as much as it is the food, from the mole in Oaxaca to the Mayan influenced Yucatan cuisine to TexMex. It is in its policemen, corrupt to a fault, its government, shaped by 70 years of single party dominance, its billionaires - as thieving as those from anywhere else.

Theroux does a wonderful job of showing this, resisting the easy and lazy impulse to make the Mexican story only the story of Mexico’s encounters with America, nor falling prey to Batalia’s essentialism. The result is a magnificent work of travel writing by a widely acknowledged master of his craft.

[Daniel Montague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite a redemption story, Paul Theroux's latest travels takes him to a Mexico rarely seen. He traverses a route that takes him from the Northern border to the Yucatan Peninsula and numerous places in between. Though weary and circumspect early on his journeys he quickly rediscovers his love of traveling and even finds a sort of contentment. Mexico, like Mr. Theroux himself is a land of contradictions.

In previous works I have read from the author he is spry and energetic at the beginning and eventually wears down physically, mentally and emotionally, while in this work he starts out in a state of melancholy, wondering if he is too old for this shit, and finds in Mexico a country that reveres the aged. His dwindling age is contrasted with his newfound buoying spirit. Though he may be getting older he still has the ideals and verve of a younger person. He still scoffs at authority, especially when they are wanton, specious or in Mexico's case corrupt. His mind is still agile and though it hinders the rest of his day he is hellbent on conversing in colloquial Spanish, so he takes a crash course on "Mexican". He teaches a course on writing in Mexico City, and forges friendships and relationships that give him unique access to physical and psychic places.

The Mexico that Mr. Theroux finds is a fragmented one that is full of not only physical barriers but mental ones. A people that is proud of its glorious Meso-American past where civilizations reigned when Europe was in the doldrums but are now ashamed and in fear of a government that only works for the highest reaches of society. A police and military force that is more corrupt and dangerous than the various drug cartels. A society that is stratified to the extreme. Whether it be economically, physically or even racially, Mexico is not a country that seems to work.

Despite the failure of its various institutions, Theroux finds the Mexican people to be hospitable, friendly and in some cases even courtly. They have suffered from an elite that uses the cudgel of violence to silence harsh critics. That is in cahoots with powerful NGOs like Monsato nationally and in league with cartels on the local level. They could be shaken down by a corrupt policeman at any moment yet instead of lashing out they take it with a reserve and quietude that is in equal parts commendable and frustrating.

Through diligent research and astute observations, Theroux is able to show the many layers of Mexican culture. His is not a merely superficial glance but a penetrating stare. How a country can worship the Roman Catholic saints and yet the cult of Santa Muerte is the nation's fasting growing religion. How a country whose citizens have turned to a fatalism yet still have random protests occurring on a regular basis. How a country goes north for economic fulfillment and south for spiritual fulfillment, with never the twain meeting. How the capital city, is a world unto itself, sharing neither the endemic poverty of its southernly provinces or the backwardness of its northern brothers.

I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure that Paul Theroux took me on. In 435 pages he gamely and ably attempted to make sense of the Mexico that he witnessed. He saw many unique festivities such as the Muxes (men dressed as ladies) in Juchitan and the various celebrations for the Dawn of the Dead. He ate many excellent meals showcasing the various cuisines and drank plenty of mezcal. He visited ruins of indigenous peoples and even attended rallies for a modern day breakaway republic in Chiapas by the Zapatistas. Most importantly, he meet numerous peoples' whose indomitable spirits will continue to make Mexico the special place that it is.

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Feeling old and unappreciated, Paul Theroux decides to undertake two journeys through Mexico: one along the contentious U.S./Mexico border, and then one into Mexico, traveling through Monterrey, to the central highlands on to Mexico City then to Oaxaca, and down south to Chiapas. Along the way, he talks to a wide variety of Mexicans: the destitute to the wealthy, those integrated into the Spanish language speaking mainstream, and those belonging to far more ancient indigenous cultures. He meets with corruption and with incredible kindness, generosity and welcome. He investigates the history of many of the issues troubling the country: the vast inequality and narco violence and he also delves into Mexico's incredibly rich artistic and cultural heritage. He heads back north to his home country feeling revitalized and fortunate to have had so many rich encounters.

This book is Theroux at his best, writing with passion and soul. Though I personally found the book about 75-100 pages too long, this is probably due more to my lack of interest in politics in general than to any flaw in the writing. Highly recommended to those wishing to understand the complex culture and history of Mexico.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read this ARC in exchange for a fair review.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will go with Paul Theroux wherever he takes me.

This time, it was to Mexico.

Theroux lives in the northern United States, so he hadn't been as inculcated to the dangers of Mexico as we here in Texas are. He was warned to be careful in many areas of Mexico, and he listened to those warnings and tried to create a route around the dangerous parts. I've often wanted to go to Mexico, but I've been repeatedly frightened away from planning a trip there, so I really enjoyed this trip with Theroux along the border, to Mexico City, and then down into the rural and poorest parts of Mexico in the south.

Lesson taken away from this book: Avoid the police in Mexico. The police seem to be one of the most dangerous parts of the country.

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Theroux writes beautifully and with vivid, provocative detail about a complicated place and people in this book.

It’s literary, reflective, geographic, and cultural. Just the kind of book to serve as the centerpiece for conversations about ethnography and society.

Theroux’s work comes not a minute too soon as we circle around questions of place and identity. It’s more than entertainment and more than literary — this book is a descriptive photograph that explores many nuances.

[Vicente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tenho um especial fascínio pelo México e que acaba por ter uma relação próxima com a língua espanhola e com os autores de língua espanhola. Portanto, costumo procurar ler obras sobre este tão extraordinário e "raro", no sentido espanhol do termo, país. Este livro de Paul Theroux, o primeiro que leio do autor, tem algumas das características que me agradam em obras do género, nomeadamente os apontamentos sobre a cultura do país, quando muitas vezes os autores se limitam às impressões que o país lhes traz. Contudo, creio que o maior "problema" deste livro tem que ver com a obsessão de Theroux em abordar a questão da fronteira e dos habitantes mexicanos que decidem atravessá-la para os Estados Unidos. Se é compreensível que o faça quando se encontra nos locais fronteiriços, por razões óbvias, já não compreendo que insista em manter essa obsessão quando se encontra em cidades mais para sul no México. Isto faz com que muitas partes do livro sejam meros interrogatórios a habitantes, sempre com a mesma temática. É um bom livro para quem nunca leu sobre este incrível país, mas não é um livro que aconselhe a quem já tenha algum nível de leitura sobre. O carácter fragmentário que começa a alastrar pelo livro à medida que avançamos também não ajuda, a não ser os pequenos capítulos em que o autor escreve sobre autores mexicanos, e fá-lo de uma forma desempoeirada, o que é sempre agradável.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading the travel books of Paul Theroux for almost forty years now, beginning with his The Old Patagonian Express. During the years that followed, he has had a decisive influence, especially on my own travels. Not that I have traveled anywhere near so widely as he has: I have lived a very responsible life at several underpaid jobs that let me take only one big trip a year.

On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey takes me back to my first foreign trip in November 1975. Since then I have returned to Mexico five or six times, and I am planning a 3-week trip to Yucatan beginning in January 2020.

Theroux has been to Mexico before, especially in The Old Patagonian Express, but this time he tries to see beneath the mask. The first few chapters have him crossing the border at numerous points between San Diego and Brownsville, Texas. Then he concentrates on the poorest states of Mexico, namely Oaxaca and Chiapas, visiting many of the small towns and villages which have traditionally furnished most of the emigrants to the States.

It is a sobering book. He quickly realizes that virtually every Mexican villager has either been to the States or has someone in his family or circle of friends who either is north of the border or who has returned.

This is a book that should be mandatory reading for people who consider that there is an immigration problem.

[Pedro L. Fragoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Yes, I was lucky—incredibly so. Lucky in the people I met, lucky in the friends I made, lucky even in my mishaps, my always emerging unharmed, with a tale to tell. More than fifty years of this, ever the fortunate traveler.”

“As an Ancient Mariner of a sort, I want to hold the doubters with my skinny hand, fix them with a glittering eye, and say, ‘I have been to a place where none of you have ever been, where none of you can ever go. It is the past. I spent decades there and I can say, you don’t have the slightest idea.’”

This is “Don Pablo” at his very best, which is very good indeed. The writing is luminous, magical even, phrases and phrases like: “When the poor stoical peasant man in San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca told me that the meaning of the Mixtec word was “the plain of snakes,” I had a perfect image for the contradictions of Mexican life: its glory, as the plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl, the supreme, dragon-like deity, the god of wind and fire and creation, worshiped by the Aztecs; and the snake as the dangerous lurker.”

The journey is fascinating and fascinatingly rendered on the page, at 70 odd years the author’s wisdom is precious, and if this book has a main theme, it has to be respect (and also trust): respeto (y tambien confianza). The respect old people don’t get in the United States (“In the casual opinion of most Americans, I am an old man, and therefore of little account, past my best, fading in a pathetic diminuendo while flashing his AARP card; like the old in America generally, either invisible or someone to ignore rather than respect, who will be gone soon, and forgotten, a gringo in his dégringolade. Naturally, I am insulted by this, but out of pride I don’t let my indignation show.”) and is the norm south of the border (“My work is my reply, my travel is my defiance. And I think of myself in the Mexican way, not as an old man but as most Mexicans regard a senior, an hombre de juicio, a man of judgment; not ruco, worn out, beneath notice, someone to be patronized, but owed the respect traditionally accorded to an elder, someone (in the Mexican euphemism) of La Tercera Edad, the Third Age, who might be called Don Pablo or tío (uncle) in deference. Mexican youths are required by custom to surrender their seat to anyone older. They know the saying: Más sabe el diablo por viejo, que por diablo—The devil is wise because he’s old, not because he’s the devil. But “Stand aside, old man, and make way for the young” is the American way.”). But more than that: The respect people deserve, even if they are poor and out of luck in this world. Also, dignity, namely in resisting (“resistir es existir”), with principles and respect, as per the Zapatistas in Chiapas (“This is the clearest possible statement of the dignity of rebellion and the limits of resistance, a rational way of looking at the world, and a means to go about fixing it: “to build a world in which many worlds fit.” In what has been described as the world’s first postmodern revolution, Marcos’s temperament—and actions—were those of a pacifist. I admired him for valuing the lives of civilians, I identified with him in his passion for writing, I was enlightened by his parables—the rabbit, the fox, Durito the beetle. I was in awe of his stamina in existing in one of the most inhospitable jungles on earth, and I was happy to be invited to the Zapatista event.”)

So, when in his review from the 1st of November in the El Heraldo de México, Pedro Ángel Palou states that this book is “un libro tan complejo, tan interesante y sobre todo tan imprescindible”, he is right.

“In the dark back streets of Matehuala, looking for a place to stay, I remembered the friendly motel, Las Palmas, where I’d slept on the way south: behind a strong fence, secure for my car, with clean rooms, and local food. “You are coming from?” the clerk at the reception desk asked. She was tall, in a tailored suit that was perhaps her uniform, and looked superior and chic, well dressed and poised. I told her Oaxaca. “Did you eat grasshoppers?” “Lots of them. Ants, too. Very tasty.” She pursed her pretty lips. “We have better food here.” Cabuches were in season, the buds of the biznaga (or barrel) cactus, like baby Brussels sprouts. I had a plate of them, and the other Matehuala specialty again, cabrito al horno, baby goat baked with the skin on, tender and slimy.”

On another note: Being a Paul Theorux book, I have my pet peeves with the author. Let’s state two.

First, the corrupt policemen on the roads of the country: “And they often warned me of the police, though I’d now had enough experiences with them to be wary, not only of the well-armed Federales in dark glasses, but also the shambling, potbellied local cops with their hats tipped sideways, glassy-eyed with greed at a roadblock and peering into my car, stroking their mustache and calculating the amount they could reasonably demand to release me. Mexican police: whenever I saw a black-and-white squad car parked by the side of a road I was traveling—and this was a frequent sight—I drove past in a state of apprehension, and was unspeakably happy when I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that it had not pulled out to pursue me.” There are a few observations on this vein and variations thereof. Every single time I read one of these “considerations”, I thought about the daily humiliations of black Americans drivers in the “great” nation in the north (DWB) and of civil asset forfeiture. In terms of a modicum of expectable security and dignity, people are in fact subject to much worse in the streets of his own country, if they are not the right race; at least in México, things can almost always be sorted out with some dollars. “It seemed to me that insecurity was a dominant theme in Mexican history, which is why people prayed for salvation and for miracles.” Yes, almost like if you are a black person living or travelling in the United States!

Second, on the subject of magic realism; or, how an author should approach the craft… Like: “I admit the wisdom and vitality of García Márquez’s novels and short stories, and the power of his imagination, his avoidance of whimsy, his great comic gift. He is the best of this bunch, writing about the hard-up hinterland, yet even his work seems a brilliant confection, fable and allegory not being to my taste. “It’s like farting ‘Annie Laurie’ through a keyhole,” Gulley Jimson says. “It may be clever but is it worth the trouble?” I have spent my reading and writing life, and my traveling, trying to see things as they are—not magical at all, but desperate and woeful, illuminated by flashes of hope.” Not to my taste, also, I confess, but anyway the word this reasoning calls to my mind is “asinine”; I’ll let Ursula K. Le Guin do the arguing (in 2004, actually): “The subject matter of realism is broader than that of any genre except fantasy; and realism was the preferred mode of twentieth-century modernism. By relegating fantasy to kiddylit or the trash, modernist critics left the field to the realistic novel. Realism was central. The word genre began to imply something less, something inferior, and came to be commonly misused, not as a description, but as a negative value judgment. Most people now understand “genre” to be an inferior form of fiction, defined by a label, while realistic fictions are simply called novels or literature. So we have an accepted hierarchy of fictional types, with “literary fiction,” not defined, but consisting almost exclusively of realism, at the top. All other kinds of fiction, the “genres,” are either listed in rapidly descending order of inferiority or simply tossed into a garbage heap at the bottom. This judgmental system, like all arbitrary hierarchies, promotes ignorance and arrogance. It has seriously deranged the teaching and criticism of fiction for decades, by short-circuiting useful critical description, comparison, and assessment. (…) Realism is for lazy-minded, semi-educated people whose atrophied imagination allows them to appreciate only the most limited and conventional subject matter. Re-Fi is a repetitive genre written by unimaginative hacks who rely on mere mimesis. If they had any self-respect they’d be writing memoir, but they’re too lazy to fact-check. Of course I never read Re-Fi. But the kids keep bringing home these garish realistic novels and talking about them, so I know that it’s an incredibly narrow genre, completely centered on one species, full of worn-out clichés and predictable situations—the quest for the father, mother-bashing, obsessive male lust, dysfunctional suburban families, etc., etc. All it’s good for is being made into mass-market movies. Given its old-fashioned means and limited subject matter, realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience.”

Also, I don't quite know what to make of this paragraph about hugging: “I walked to the edge of the stage, where he met me at the top of the steps and gave me a hug, embracing me with peculiar force, and this shared energy eased me. I had been apprehensive—a stranger in Chiapas, a visible gringo among the Tzotzils and Tzeltales, an old man in street clothes and a Stetson among the masked Zapatistas. The hug calmed me in a way that went beyond helpful reassurance. A hug has been proven to produce a neurochemical called oxytocin, which flashes through your body, warming it and healing it, making the hugged one feel safe. The Comandante did not release me immediately, as I expected. He held me and said, ‘Welcome.’” Huh, it was just a hug!

Al in all, a complex, layered, rich, beautiful, important, indispensable book.

“He flung his arm around me. He began to speak in Zapoteco, with great force, in a heartfelt way. “Eet yelasu nara!” he said, smiling, but blinking mezcal tears. “What is he saying?” I asked Rodrigo. “‘Don’t forget me.’ In Zapoteco.” No, nor would I forget the sunlight slanting through the puffs of smoke from the earthen pile of the oven, or the thatched roofs of the mill and the sheds, the tang of fermenting agave gunk, the horse cropping grass in the valley below, the eager faces of the Zapotec crew, their work-toughened fingers when they shook my hand, or my delirium, part mezcal, part pure traveler’s bliss.”

[Apratim Mukherjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that Paul Theroux is a great travel writer.He not only observes what goes on around him but also mingles with local people.A Theroux travelogue will take a lot of time to read and if one misses a word or a line,the reader will not be able to connect the dots.Paul is not a writer who will go to Mexico City or Tijuana ,write his experiences and publish a book claiming that he has visited whole of Mexico.It takes guts to go to the underbelly of Mexican society and constructively criticise the Mexican system of governance.
His journey starts in the US- Mexico border and ends in impoverished Zapatista lands.
He witnessed the Mexican flavoured corruption,red tape,protests,religion etc.There are five sections in the book and third section is poorly edited.Otherwise,its a classic Paul Theroux work.
Writers like Theroux,Thubron etc.are now almost an extinct breed.They are the ones who make one see the world by their words.
I highly recommend the book and will request the reader to use google street view and google maps while reading the book.It really enhances the reading experience.