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A review by jdintr
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
4.0
Last summer, I took my sons and nephews on a road trip along the US-Mexico border. We ate lunch in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, drove to Sierra Vista, Arizona along the border, often coming as close as 50 yards to the metal fence that separates the two nations. After a visit to Tucson and the Mission San Xavier del Bac, we left the Tohono O'odham Reservation and drove to Ajo, camping for a night in Organ Pipe Cactus National Park.
In other words, we traveled the Devil's Highway.
But it wasn't until I had read Urrea's book that my head understood the landscape and the people that my eyes had scene.
One of the most fascinating aspects to Urrea's narrative is just how populated the border region seems to be. He fills in gaps of history, profiles Native Americans, Border Patrol agents, and right-wing patriots, and places the reader among a broad cast that operates in one of the most desolate areas of North America.
I most enjoyed the journalism Urrea demonstrated here. He had looked up the families of the Yuma 14 and filled in fascinating details about many of the men--both those who died and those who survived. He details the landscape. The narrative almost shimmers with dry heat.
The book reminded me a little of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea in its ability to stretch a long, harrowing trip into an almost encyclopedic look at the context. Urrea goes into detail about the steps of "hyperthermia," i.e. overheating, that lead to death. Only once--when he speculated about the religious visions of the victims--did I feel that he went too far in filling in the details.
A final chapter, written ten years after the events covered in TDH (May of 2001) look at how the border has changed since that terrible, deadly summer.
Having been to Organ Pipe Cactus recently, I can attest that there is an 18-foot-high metal fence separating the park from Mexico. There seem to be Border Patrol vehicles every mile or so. And the regular inspection stations give the border area the feel of a police state.
In other words, we traveled the Devil's Highway.
But it wasn't until I had read Urrea's book that my head understood the landscape and the people that my eyes had scene.
One of the most fascinating aspects to Urrea's narrative is just how populated the border region seems to be. He fills in gaps of history, profiles Native Americans, Border Patrol agents, and right-wing patriots, and places the reader among a broad cast that operates in one of the most desolate areas of North America.
I most enjoyed the journalism Urrea demonstrated here. He had looked up the families of the Yuma 14 and filled in fascinating details about many of the men--both those who died and those who survived. He details the landscape. The narrative almost shimmers with dry heat.
The book reminded me a little of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea in its ability to stretch a long, harrowing trip into an almost encyclopedic look at the context. Urrea goes into detail about the steps of "hyperthermia," i.e. overheating, that lead to death. Only once--when he speculated about the religious visions of the victims--did I feel that he went too far in filling in the details.
A final chapter, written ten years after the events covered in TDH (May of 2001) look at how the border has changed since that terrible, deadly summer.
Having been to Organ Pipe Cactus recently, I can attest that there is an 18-foot-high metal fence separating the park from Mexico. There seem to be Border Patrol vehicles every mile or so. And the regular inspection stations give the border area the feel of a police state.