April 20, 2009
The vexed issue of illegal immigration is goosed in this raucous, hammy odyssey. Rico, a self-proclaimed gonzo journalist and “soft, white... middle-class American” with no Spanish, set out to portray the Mexican migrant experience by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, and spends the book searching the border’s 2,000-mile length for a safe, convenient place to do so. Such does not exist along a frontier controlled on one side by the U.S. Border Patrol and on the other by drug cartels and gang-affiliated coyotes, and Rico’s quest eventually reduces him to an almost authentic state of semicriminal desperation. Along the way, he debates and mocks ideologues on all sides, from nutty Minutemen border vigilantes to naïve open-border activists. The book is more about writing a book about the border than it is about the border. Rico himself, with his exaggerated angst, is always the showy central character, and many of his encounters—parading his Minutemen T-shirt before offended Mexican-Americans, soliciting coyotes in a Mexican strip-joint—are transparently staged. Still, when he takes the spotlight off himself, he conveys an arresting panorama of an out-of-control borderland full of seething rancor and foolish dreams.
June 1, 2009
An immersion journalist's ill-conceived quest to illegally cross the Mexican border into the United States.
Although the banal title fails to capture the inherent danger of the task, former Army infantryman and Penthouse contributor Rico (Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America, 2007) spends the first few chapters prepping the reader for hair-raising adventure. With the guidance of"coyotes"—mercenary guides who help illegal aliens cross the border—the author planned to put himself at risk and cross the border in the same covert, desperate fashion that hundreds of Mexicans attempt every day. Initially presented as a gesture of empathy for the poor souls trying to escape poverty-ridden Mexico, Rico's quest never quite transcends narcissistic stunt journalism. The author orchestrates a dramatic buildup to his undertaking with foreboding stories of northern Mexico's notorious Devil's Highway and the deadly Los Zetas paramilitary group. But as Rico and his battered rental car sped along the U.S.-Mexico border to find an ideal illegal entry point, his biggest nemeses were curious cops and nosy border patrolmen. However, the author does offer objective profiles of the"Minutemen" near San Diego—vigilante civilian border patrollers with their own primitive means of curtailing illegal immigration. In Juarez, Rico made compelling notes of the city's desperate poverty and the important ways in which it differs from sister city El Paso, Texas, but he's self-conscious among the American aid workers—privileged college graduates who shucked their expensive degrees to help the poor—and betrays a hint of jealousy and contempt for these slumming do-gooders. Finally, after paranoia-induced acid flashbacks, constant hassles from the authorities and nonstop driving, Rico's project began to take its toll. His final stab at crossing the border is unforgivably lame compared to the grand Lawrence of Arabia–style adventure he envisioned.
Delivers some tense moments but never fulfills its initial promise.
(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
Starred review from July 1, 2009
In case youre wondering: its no coincidence that the author shares his name with the hero of Robert Heinleins Starship Troopers. The author changed his name to Rico when he was 21 and credits Heinleins novel as one of the reasons why he joined the armyyou can read about his post-9/11stint in Afghanistan in his 2007 book, Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green. Rico practices what some call participatory journalism: traveling, going undercover, playing a role, all in pursuit of a good story. Here he recounts his brief (but undeniably dangerous) adventure as an illegal border crosser between Mexico and the U.S. His goal, he tells us, was to see firsthand the politics of the border and the people who risk their lives to cross it. And what better way than to hook up with some actual border crossers than to keep his identity as a journalist a secret and to put his own life on the line? But the book isnt just about coming to America; its also about the reasons why ordinary men and women risk everything to get there, about the lure of the U.S., and about the very real fear that, in pursuit of this story, Rico could wind up in serious trouble, or even dead. Told in a vivid, often dramatic first-person style, its an eye-opening and frequently teeth-clenching tale. Naturally, the book should be highly recommended to fans of Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)