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A review by archytas
The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail by Óscar Martínez
3.5
A highly evocative series of essays about the experiences of migrants headed from Central America to the USA without a visa. The essays tackle a variety of scenarios - from the precarious of the train that gives the book its name, complete with decapitation risk, the search for coyotes in border towns, and the experiences of Mexican cities. The last essays deal with what happens on the northern side of the border. It is a catalogue of horrors, told with empathy and respect for those who decide to subject themselves to it. The staggering, unbelievable statistic of 80% of women migrants being raped is well understood by the women who choose to try this, for example.
The book was written as a series of essays for a Salvadorean audience. This gives it a couple of weaknesses as a book - much of the factual content is repeated in each essay, growing tiresome if you read it in a long sitting, and there is a tight focus on the migration experience, with much less explanation about what would bring people to take such risk. I am searching now for a good book to help contextualise this, and if it is half as readable and memorable as The Beast, I'll count myself lucky.
The book was written as a series of essays for a Salvadorean audience. This gives it a couple of weaknesses as a book - much of the factual content is repeated in each essay, growing tiresome if you read it in a long sitting, and there is a tight focus on the migration experience, with much less explanation about what would bring people to take such risk. I am searching now for a good book to help contextualise this, and if it is half as readable and memorable as The Beast, I'll count myself lucky.