Rumbo Al Hermoso Norte (2009)

Book Info

Author

Luis Alberto Urrea

Genre

Historical Fiction

Rating

3.73 of 5 Votes: 2

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ISBN

0316054860 (ISBN13: 9780316054867)

Language

English

Publisher

Back Bay Books

Shops

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble

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About book Rumbo Al Hermoso Norte (2009)

I thought this was a terrific "road novel" about a group of friends from Sinaloa who venture across the border into "Los Yunaites" through Tijuana, San Diego and on to Kansas. Some of the dialog in the book is delivered in slang and Spanglish. If you've read any of Urrea's non-fiction books you'll recognize familiar themes. Also, the blurbs on the cover mention how "riotously" funny the book is, which is a wild overstatement. Mostly, the book is a poetic account of two countries, their people and their dreams, both cruel and kind. Not nearly as compelling as The Devil's Highway, Urrea's non-fiction tale of life in the borderlands of Mexico and the US. It was as if he took all the elements from Devil's Highway and threw them into a blender. Let's see how many pieces we can squeeze into a story I make up. We'll have the sympathetic border agent, the drug smugglers, the wacky garbage dump dweller, the plucky/frustrated/trustworthy gay friend, the fierce older aunt, the coyote, the racist Americans and through it all there is Nayeli, courageous and focused to the end.