Modelo Antiguo

This book was another great find from one of my favorite publishers Cinco Puntos Press. The translation into English by Sharon Franco and Joe Hayes is smooth, catching all the Mexican dialogue and chistes with ease. Cinco Puntos is doing such a fantastic job in bringing over these great Mexican novels by writers like Luis Eduardo Reyes and Paco Taibo II that before I write my review on the book, I have to take a moment to thank them and encourage them in this wonderful task they are undertaking.

The novel centers on Juan, a young taxi driver and Barbara, a 74 year old virgin who wants to die in her vintage, cherry old Ford and so hires Juan as a chauffeur to drive her around Mexico City – the Mexico City that she remembers from her youth. It’s a wild ride through the streets of the city and the reader is made familiar with these crazy Mexican streets.

Barbara is a well-bred lady and Juan, a rude, crude and not so honest man. They start off hating each other. Juan’s nefarious intentions are to steal the car and whatever money he can get from Barbara but something keeps bringing him back on this strange ride through Barbara’s memories and the city streets. Slowly they begin to fall for each other and this strange romance ensues as they dodge danger, visit hotels and pharmacies as they try to deal with their feelings and emotions.

It’s a funny, wry, absurd and wonderfully surreal tale of Mexico City and love.

The Moon Will Forever Be a Distant Love

“AMID THE MARKETS AND CANALS of the great city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, smack on the corner where nowadays Dolores Street runs past the Chinese restaurants and umbrella stores, Conquistador Balboa is in a rush to run an errand for the Marquis, and the Indian girl Florinda is walking to the flea market.”

This is the first sentence in this marvelous, surreal novel by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, one of Mexico’s well-known novelists and Cinco Puntos Press has done a marvelous thing in bringing this author’s work to the US for us to enjoy.

The book is about Florinda and her Conquistador love, Balboa who is fired from his bureaucratic job with the other conquistadores because of downsizing. The two leave to Tijuana by bus hoping to cross The Border into the Northernish Empire.

As with many couples, real life intrudes on their fairy tale. They find without the proper papers they cannot cross The Border, Florinda (Xochitl) has to live with Balboa’s lisping Castillian family who treat her like a maid. Meanwhile Balboa’s uncle gets him across the border stuffed into the trunk of a car while still wearing his conquistador armor.

In this bizarre and wonderful quirky novel, centuries are traversed and lives change. Florinda comes to work in a factory in Tijuana, becomes a serious shoe-aholic and learns to live on her own. Balboa starts wearing jeans and a t-shirt, loses his lisp and takes up with the fair haired waitress Maryanne before getting rounded up by La Migra. This is such a fun and well told story filled with chistes and puns. I think my favorite part was when the Conquistador gets picked up by La Migra and deported. I encourage everyone to read this book and to find more Crosthwaite in his native Spanish. Kudos to Cinco Puntos for bringing him to the light here in the Northernish Empire!

The Queen of the South

The Queen of the South is a fast-paced thriller with the most unlikely of heroines, Teresa Mendoza, the girlfriend of a drug runner and pilot, Guero Davila in Sinaloa, Mexico. The book starts with Teresa’s special phone ringing, the phone that is the indication her lover is dead and they are coming for her. With the ringing of the phone, we are thrust into Teresa’s world, one of drug trafikkers, killers and mafiosos. Teresa has to think fast, run fast and outwit the people coming to kill her simply because she was Davila’s woman. Riverte takes us on a wild chase with this daring and soon to be dangerous woman. We explore the underbelly of Mexico, Spain and Morocco as Teresa’s life changes and she becomes a woman to be reckoned with – The Queen of the South.

At times frightening and always thrilling the book spans 12 years and follows Teresa and a host of characters. There is the frantic escape from Culiacan, the deadly boat race from the law while running drugs with her new lover, a boat ride that lands her in prison and many other fascinating bits of her life.

Riverte, who unabashedly emulates Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo creates the most amazing Edmund Dantes in Teresa. The Chateau D’If is the prison El Puerto de Santa Maria, where Teresa meets her spoiled drug addicted partner Patty who will eventually lead her to a fortune. Teresa, however becomes the leader and dominates the world in which Patty taught her to live in.

The Queen of the South is a fascinating look in the world of the underbelly of the world we live in. Teresa is not your typical character and honestly, I didn’t like her, but you don’t have to like her to be caught up in her world, to be swept away before you know it. Arturo Perez-Riverte has written yet another captivating and interesting novel with fast-paced narrative, elaborate story and scary characters.