First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century

Like other reviewers I love Mexico City and I am constantly asked, by friends trembling in fear, why I am going to the DF "again" and why I'm not terrified to go there. From now on, I'm going to make them buy Lida's book and read it. He can say it better than I ever will. Then if they want to talk to me about Mexico City, we'll have some reality to talk about. Reading this book, I was deliriously happy. Lida gets it about Mexico City. His writing is clear, straight-ahead, and evocative. He offers a sense that rings true of life in the great, enlivening and fabulously weird and wonderful metropolis and especially the citizens of a city where you can find pyramids in someone's yard, and where my neighbors greet my xoloitzcuintli dog and then whisper to me (so the dog can't hear) "We used to eat them." There is so much bad writing about Mexico, way too many misconceptions, and far too much narrow reporting of events and people who are at the extremes - movie stars, assassins, cartels, and Mexicans crossing the line into the lost (stolen?) provinces of California and Arizona. Lida tells us what the vast majority of defeños do and think and say. And eat. Get this book, read it and join Lida in the 21st century.

David Lida's vivid and fascinating word portraits provide a sense of intimate clarity for the myriad sights and scenes of La Capital. He has a real feel for the big picture of such an immense and tumultuous metropolis, as well as an adroitness for rendering closely observed D.F. moments and depicting the divers characters that inhabit its streets and colonias. A hilarious yet poignant account of an afternoon spent in the company of a group of borrachos in a cantina is just one among several highlights, as is the chilling tale of his own kidnapping. He presents a vision of Mexico City that is affectionate yet unsentimental. His love for the place is clear-eyed and his knowledge is hard-earned. He manages to cover it all: from Tepito to Polanco, from discussions of various art[s] scenes and popular culture to distinctive local religious practices and social/sexual mores, from Carlos Slim to faded night club singers. Lida is a true urban cicerone. Chris Humphrey's "Moon Mexico City" and Jim Johnston's "Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide..." are both fine books and excellent aids for the English-speaking visitor trying to cope with Chilango-land. "First Stop in the New World..." is indispensable as a means of more deeply understanding it and will be a permanent addition to the city's literature.

Recently I decided that it was time that I ventured to Mexico. I have traveled all over the world but somehow I have missed Mexico. So being the type of person who would wither and die if I had to spend a week in Cabo or Cancun at a resort, I booked a trip to Mexico City with a weekend in Zihuatenejo. Being the type of traveler who likes to discover what lies beneath the surface, I was thrilled to find David Lida's book. The author who calls Mexico City home has written a book that captures everything I always hope to find in a book about a city and much more. His observations, both wide angle and incredibly close up are always entertaining and build to create a complete vision of one of the world's largest cities right now. The author does not gloss over the rumors we all have heard about the city. He also exposes the reasons why the city can seem so scary to the outsider; its size, lawlessness, and extremities that can make even an experienced traveler a little uneasy. But then he will share a stories of the cities residents and you will feel the connection one can only experience by walking its streets. I recommend this book to anyone with any type of connection to the city, be it by heritage or for a future traveler. Even if you never intend on stepping foot in Mexico City this book is so entertaining and visual that one might feel like they have seen it for themselves simply by reading Lida's amazing book. It's clear this was a huge undertaking and that fact that it is written by a "gringo" just speaks to the author's boldness.

Ever motivated by his affection for Mexico City, David Lida presents First Stop in the New World, about the people and places that have shaped his own conclusion on what it means to live in the labyrinth that is el Distrito Federal. First Stop is written in the style you would expect from someone with years of experience in journalism, with a witty and authentic voice that can inform us about Mexico City like any lifelong capitalino, and still remain refreshingly apolitical. He is not afraid of clarifying the truth behind the "Wal-mart next door to the Pyramids" rumor, or the exaggeration of the frequency of kidnappings. Want to know the truth behind these two sensational stories? Read this book to find out. Lida's literary style comes through his investigative narrative, (and evokes his other career as a short story writer), filled with characters that are fodder for stories in their own right, as he admits. He recounts details as varied as Mexico City herself - how the the culture drives the sexuality of the inhabitants; how the city inspires ingenious ways for people to become entrepreneurs; and how the urban landscape even affects what people eat and how they eat. Lida is clearly in love with the city he calls home, and like a passionate lover, the City can sometimes hurt the one who loves her: readers will be jarred by Lida's composed, calm testimony about his ordeal as a victim of an "express kidnapping". It would have been easy for anyone to write about this with certain bitterness, but Lida did not let this experience keep him away from el D.F. As a chilangofile myself, I am happy to find that as joyously overwhelming as Mexico City is, Lida's book is not improvised like the very lives and urban sprawl he writes about; it is carefully composed with ringside accounts of someone who has been there, and stayed to tell the stories, without the insular judgment of an infrequent tourist "surviving among the natives." The book reads less like generic publications on Mexico and closer to literary journalism, which makes First Stop in the New World a book worth reading multiple times, both for its smooth prose and the startling metropolis it chronicles.

I've lived in Mexico City for over ten years and find David Lida's perspective on urban life to ring true. The book nicely combines investigative journalism with an entertaining, personal voice, giving it a 'you-are-there' feel. Jim Johnston, author of 'Mexico City: an Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler'