Crossers

I dashed out to buy Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Philip Caputo's, latest novel after reading an enthusiastic review in my local newspaper. I was unfamiliar with this author, but I was intrigued by the promise of a burly border tale. I was not disappointed. This is a generational saga and epic of the southwest, bristling with illegal border crossers and warring drug cartels, studded with outlaws and vaqueros. A dense book, it starts rather slowly, gradually lassoing the reader into a complex, emotional story brittle with sepulchral secrets and spilling with scoured grief. Gil Castle, a Wall Street broker broken by the death of his wife in the tragic events of 9/11, lives day to day in suicidal agony. At the advice of his grown daughters, he has submitted to therapy. However, the platitudes of "healing" and "closure" bring him even further to the brink of despair. He prefers to read the intellectual, reflective stoics, such as Seneca, or the Greek tragedian, Aeschylus; they speak to him with a deep and thoughtful gravitas. He rebuffs what he considers the psychobabble of grief counseling, of America's proposition that we weren't meant to suffer for long periods of time, "as if grief were something like digestion." As a last grasp for hope, he decides to leave New York and move to a small cabin in fictional Patagonia, a berg in the desert of the Arizona-Mexico border, where his cousin still owns and operates a cattle ranch that has been in the family for a century. His maternal grandfather, Ben Erskine, pioneered this business, the San Ignacio Cattle Company. What Gil and the reader gradually discover is that this sprawling ranch is riddled with "ghosts and bones." Two main narrative threads emerge, each with its distinct flavor, tone, and color. The author creates a scintillating outlaw tale of the early twentieth century that is both chilly and taut, ripe and ropy. The actions of Gil's desperado descendants alternate with the modern-day fable of family and the open graves of grief. The story seamlessly goes back and forth from Gil's twenty-first century tale to Ben Erskine's of a hundred years ago. Peppered throughout are letters and interviews with Gil's relatives from mid-century. Caputo heightens the broad western tale with an astute character study, giving us some salty figures a la Cormac McCarthy meets Larry McMurtry, but branding his own mark and riding in his own saddle. CROSSERS keeps its narrative focus, even as the subplots spread and the landscape widens. The vengeance and violence of the drug runners and border crossers keep the pace tight and the action grisly, as well as reticulate the ancestral histories and hatreds between and within families and neighbors. Moreover, the subplots serve as allegory and as metaphor to the wide divides of the human heart, and to the sorrows and histories that threaten to bury us in modern and distant tragedies. Some of the characters are a little contrived or thin, although the

My husband and I retired to southern New Mexico three years ago from the east coast. While on the east coast I told many of my friends that I intended to join a group that provided water for illegal immigrants crossing the border into NM. Seeing and reading about the problems caused by the "crossers" forced me to have second thoughts. Caputo's book finalized my concerns. He does an absolutely excellent job of presenting the multiple sides of the issue of crossers. A couple of characters sympathize with the illegal immigrants for all the reasons humanity presents: life is better here; they do the jobs no one else wants to do; the Statue of Liberty; etc. The characters who oppose illegal immigration are portrayed in many ways: those who just don't like immigrants; those who think there should be a "Great Wall" to keep them out; those who are concerned about the danger of the illegal crossings, etc. Caputo also extensively addresses the issue of the drug cartels and the mayhem and danger they have added to the issues. Where Caputo does an outstanding job is to bring all of these stories together, and to throw in some historical background with characters who originally worked and owned the land during the Mexican Revolution. Unless you live along the Borderlands you likely do not have a full picture of what is going on here -- newspapers on the east coast (and probably most of the US) tell isolated stories, some heart-wrenching, and some seriously overblown. Caputo, through his characters, presents an accurate view of the issues, forces the reader to consider good and bad aspects of the illegal crossings, and demonstrates how quickly things can turn bad even with the best of intentions. Folks -- the fence won't solve anything -- read this book, talk to your friends and contact your congressmen -- we need a better policy. Urge policy-makers to read this book.

CROSSERS is an amazing read-- layer upon layer we are introduced to the complexities of border life from all the different angles-- the women characters clearly holding their own with the men-- the Hispanic balanced against the Anglo. This book is so well researched and perfectly detailed, that you might check the back cover to see if it is fiction or non-fiction. (Note: Caputo's masterpiece-- A Rumor of War.) As any superior narrator, he remains above judgment, and shows the flip sides of all equations-- the suffering of the left-for-dead Mexican worker used by the soulless drug machine where women are as ruthless as men, the right wing rancher, the man who plays both sides of the line, the eastern/newcomer recovering from his own personal grief only to witness more of it. Grudges die hard in the wild west, and neither side truly forgets. But more than a tale of revenge, this is also a redeeming story of the heart-- where a man loses the love of his life, only to find his life (and love) again on this bloody border. Linking the terrorism of 9/11 to that of this unforgiving desert, one stands aside to observe the horrors while being transported by Caputo's masterful story-telling..

Crossers combines history, adventure, and romance with a message about how the past haunts the present. Caputo skillfully interweaves Old West tales of mysterious renegade lawman Ben Erskine with the story of Ben's descendants, including Gil Castle, who tries to escape the pain of losing his wife in the 9/11 attacks by crossing from East to West, specifically to the family's ranch on the Arizona-Mexico border. There, he confronts a different kind of violence, as he copes with modern-day outlaws trafficking in drugs and human cargo--migrants crossing from south to north to make a new life. The characters really come to life, especially the unique Yvonne, a drug queenpin with major attitude, and The Professor, who works both sides of the border and the law. A richly rewarding read.

This book moved back and forth between two stories, much as several of its characters cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. The primary story is that of Gil Castle, a highly successful Wall Street financial analyst (net worth: "low eight figures") whose wife was on the plane that smashed into the north tower on 9/11. In an attempt to recover from the grief that paralyzed him for two years after this disaster, he moves to his cousin's huge Arizona cattle ranch, which is right on the Mexican border. Life on the ranch offers many diversions, including a heated romance, but some of the diversions are less than idyllic. Drug smugglers and people smugglers (coyotes) use the ranch as an entrepôt to the U.S. Castle finds himself in the middle, literally. The other story is that of Ben Erskine, Castle's grandfather, and the grandfather of Blaine Erskine, the ranch owner. Through flashbacks, Ben's life unfolds from 1903-1951. Ben was a violent man, with a boiling temper. He worked on both sides of the law, once serving as a county sheriff. He played a role in the violence that characterized revolutionary Mexico in the early twentieth century. His grandson, Blaine, also has a very short fuse. I thought the first two thirds (total: 448 pages) dragged more than just a bit. I felt little empathy for Gil Castle and found his transformation from Wall Street rich guy to Arizona pistol-packing cowboy improbable. But it does pick up and builds to a spellbinding conclusion, which earns five stars. Veteran author Philip Caputo brings great insight into the human condition to this work. He develops fascinating portrayals of such characters as Yvonne Menéndez, vicious, vengeful drug queen, and The Professor, a cunning operative with a bizarre distortion of sight and smell.