Giving birth is difficult enough with one woman involved; imagine when it takes ten. We conceived of this anthology in October of 2004. We had no instruction manual to follow, no physician to monitor our pregnancy, check our blood pressure, give us internal examinations or prepare us for delivery. How hard could it be? read more

Some of us wondered how that wedding could be blessed by God. Was it really His will? The village padre said it was. No one dared ask why. That would just give him a chance to preach to us about the power of faith. And, after all, our good standing in the church means a lot to us. The church provides the major distraction in our tedious lives, giving us religious fiestas and processions, baptisms, weddings, first communions and funerals. read more

When I refer to "my Mexican maid," my Canadian friends cringe. I suspect they picture a stooped crone in a shawl, scrubbing my floors on her hands and arthritic knees. Lupita is young, a handsome woman with strong features, too strong to be described as pretty. She arrives for work wearing tight jeans and a sweatshirt, dons my Harrod's apron and sets to work. She has her own methodical approach - bleach in the toilet bowls, shower curtains tossed over the rods, laundry in the washing machine, efficient methods I never interfere with. read more

- an excerpt from the book: "Agave Marias - border crossers, boundary breakers." by various authors.

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I'm sorry your husband couldn't come today. He's a much better driver than you are. No offense, its just that, generally speaking, women aren't very good drivers. Watch out for that kid on the bike. Driving in Mexico here, its not easy, especially for a woman. These Mexicans, they drive like madmen. read more

My reprobate pilot is a doctor. His own health problems prompted early retirement to Mexico. When he couldn't pass a health exam for a new flying license, he changed a 3 to an 8 on the expiration date of his old one and flew down from Seattle. Most generous with his gringo friends, Doc shares his medical expertise, his Jaguar, his Harley and now his Cessna. This is my first flight in a small plane and I'm excited. Our plans are simple. Two hours round trip to the coastal beach, a swim and picnic lunch. We should be back in the afternoon. read more

Two things the three señoras had in common were poverty and pain. Even their names, Dolores, meaning pains, seemed to cast a grim prognostication on their lives. Their informal names of Lola did nothing to lighten their load. read more

The objects in my house have become a form of dialogue between my housekeeper Yolanda and me. I put things in places where they are artistically pleasing to me. That is why the Virgin of Guadalupe has resided for a year in my bathroom, along with other sculptures and paintings of female forms. But when I arrived home after a month in the States, I found my large terra-cotta Virgin moved to the small table below my entryway nicho. Around her were placed a few cacti in small pots that I'd had up in the nicho next to a grouping of stones, greenery and pre-Columbian replicas. Now the Virgin stood solidly in front of them, the nubs of white candles rising from attached candelabra on each side of her. read more

For the second year in a row it was a time of drought in Mexico. At the time of year when the life-giving rains should have been falling each day, they had come and gone, dropping just enough moisture ... read more

The tiny casita glowed in apricot hues and beamed welcoming blue trim around the doorway. The mixed scent of flowers and earth hung in the air like rich incense. Ducking under a brilliant mauve bougain... read more

It was the scorpion in the amber that fascinated Linda most, at first. A four-inch, brownish nodule of Mexican amber from the great limestone flats in Chiapas, it lay on a bed of still bright marigold ... read more

The story line concerns a young Mexican girl, Teresa Mendoza, 23 years old, who is in love with a Chicano Cessna pilot who flies cocaine and hashish from Colombia to locations in Texas. It's a dangerous trade to be in and Teresa's lover, Güero Dávila, is well aware of the risks, not only from drug enforcement agents but also from rival narcotraficantes. With the former, the risks are imprisonment. With the latter, the penalty is death should one lose a shipment or not play the game the way the bosses want it played. read more

Here's a story that takes in a complete life, from childhood well into adulthood, and from rags to riches. It's a story that is of interest to we residents in the Lake Chapala area as it starts out in Ajijic and covers a fair number of years there - or should I say here. On page one we encounter ten-year-old Francisco Obregón, a homeless barefoot orphan outside the Old Posada on the Ajijic waterfront. It's 1940 and Francisco is hustling for odd jobs and tips. It's the only way he can manage to survive. read more

What a disappointment! I really enjoyed the first two books of this trilogy: All The Pretty Horses and The Crossing. But this final volume is something of a letdown. McCarthy still has that great prose gift going for him, but, in this case, it's in the service of a rather tawdry narrative. The two heroes of the first volumes come together here. To refresh your memory, they're Billy Parham and John Grady Cole. The time: 1952. The place: New Mexico and various border cities of Mexico. Our lads are a couple of ranch hands in an area that is soon to be taken over by the government for nuclear testing. The times are a-changing and a way of life is disappearing. read more

Here's a collection of stories with a rather unusual theme. Mexico isn't just the place where the action takes place in these tales. Rather, it's as if Mexico - sunny, exotic, mysterious and occasionally slightly dangerous - is yet another character in each of the tales. There are 18 stories here, by authors such as Stephen Crane, Jack Kerouac, Anaís Nin, Tennessee Williams, Patricia Highsmith and Graham Greene. With those kinds of names you can at least rely on the pedigree of the material. read more

This month's column is a little bit different as I'm not reviewing one particular book on or about Mexico. Rather, I'd like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to some local writers here in the Guadalajara/Lake Chapala area. I recently had the experience of reading and enjoying four books, all within a very brief time span, and then realized that all four were written by local writers. read more

The two cultures - Mexican and U.S. - come together in a thoughtful way in this interesting novel, which is set in both countries. The story concerns a group of Mexican illegal immigrants who travel north in May each year to work in the cherry orchards in northern Michigan. They are from the village of La Purísima in Michoacán. It's a community inhabited solely by elderly people and women and children during the picking season when all the men head north on what has become their annual rite of passage. It's perhaps more than that. read more

Here's Fuentes at it again, publishing short stories and novellas under a single title and trying to interlink them into a cohesive whole as he tried to do in The Crystal Frontier. The connection here is the orange tree, the symbol of Spain. read more

Bob Culbertson, a Border Patrol chief, is chasing Mexican border crossers somewhere in Texas when a light aircraft in obvious difficulties flies overhead and then crashes in the scrub. Culbertson and his partner go to investigate and find two dead men and 40 or 50 bags of cocaine in the aircraft. One of the men has a satchel with a pouch in it. When he examines it, he finds a collection of government documents which he believes are CIA papers. read more

The book consists of nine short narratives - stories, if you like - each one occurring in the hazy borderline between Mexico and America - what Fuentes chooses to call the crystal frontier. read more

You would be hard pressed to find a more Mexican novel than this one. Just about all of the action takes place in the state of Coahuila. I don’t particularly enjoy reading westerns but such is the power of McCarthy’s writing that I was drawn into those small researches simply to enhance my enjoyment of his book. read more

The setting of the story is around 1910, the time of the Mexican Revolution and the war is an ever-present background to the story. It's a time when great cruelties were imposed on the Indian populace by the country's rulers. Indeed, genocide is the only word you could use to describe what happened. The villain of the piece is a colonel of the Rurales who makes it his personal mission to see that every Indian dies in the most hideous fashion possible. As villains go, this one is a real bastard. read more

Atticus Cody is a 67 year old Colorado rancher. He’s a very successful straight-shooting kind of guy. He has a son, Scott, who is a painter, evidently talented. He has gone to Mexico and is out of touch with his father. Atticus cares: Scott doesn’t seem to be concerned. When the story opens, Atticus has learned about Scott’s death, by suicide, in a place called Resurrección, near Cancun. Atticus goes to Resurrección to pick up his son’s body and return it to Colorado. There he meets up with the cast of characters who knew Scott, most of whom are, at best, hippies and bohemians, at worst, drifters and fugitives. read more

The story begins in 1941, at the time America went to war with Japan and Germany. It concerns the Salazar family, poor farmers in Chihuahua. The grandfather, Sebastian, knows he is dying and he advises the family to move to the United States. He reasons that because of the war the Americans will want lots of people to work in their country as their men go off to fight. Their farm is a ruin. Only expensive fertilizer could bring it back to life. And they don't have any money. read more

Even though the story starts out calmly enough, by the time you reach chapter two, you're in the middle of the wildest kind of fantasy, part new age and part sci-fi, complete with time travel, space travel, reincarnation, astrology and almost anything else you can imagine. The time span of the book stretches from the fall of Moctezuma to the 23rd century read more