The Ultimate Good Luck by Richard Ford- A review

The Ultimate Good Luck (TUGL) was not an easy book for me to read, but that isn't due to any flaw in the story, it is a testament to how accurately the entire novel captures the moods and viewpoint of its antihero, Harry Quinn. Quinn is veteran of the Vietnam War, a drifter, a laborer, a drinker and a bit of a druggie, the kind of person who used to be somebody's son, who went to school down the street, and who went to fight for his country only to find himself fighting ghosts and children in the jungle and the darkness. He wasn't destroyed by the war, completely, but he is no longer whole.

Quinn has answered a cry for help from Rae, his estranged companion, because Rae's brother, Sonny, is trapped in a Mexican jail on drug charges. Making matters worse, the drug charges are completely legitimate: Sonny was caught trafficking in cocaine, bringing it north from Columbia to the US via Mexico, a practice known as muling. The problem now is to get Sonny out of jail, and Quinn has set the wheels in motion to solve everything, as long as the good luck holds. Quinn has hired a well-connected lawyer, Bernhardt, and it seems that both the plan and the luck are on track. However, this is Mexico, Oaxaca to be precise, where the zócalo, or town square, is full of impoverished Zapotec Indians and bewildered tourists, and a constant stream of Indians circulates in a netherworld between the mountains and the valley below, where the capitol city lies. This is Mexico, and Mexico has bigger problems to worry herself over than a few US citizens, especially a small-time crook...

...and so it goes that the plans of all visitors, whether wide-eyed tourists from the Midwest or dopers from nowhere in particular, must bow to greater forces as the army, police, guerrillas, Zapotec and other groups feint, withdraw, and attack in a constant struggle for survival, civil rights, and any rights at all. Just because the struggle seems below the surface much of the time, one can't assume it has ceased- relax your guard, or just walk out of your hotel for lunch, and you may end up blown across a street by a bomb or taken away forever by soldiers, desaparecido.

What is a guerrilla? After a fatal gunfight and major cocaine bust at the airport, the lawyer Bernhardt offers an operational definition,

In Mexico, to obey the law is always to avoid it. If the police are shot, then guerrillas are accused... Many people don't know they're guerrillas before the police say so. But they begin to act that way as soon as they find out.

Through Quinn's peculiar vision, we glimpse wartime Vietnam, the confused childhood days that preceded it, and the aimless, rootless wandering that followed the war. We hear of Sonny's descent from State basketball champion to point-shaving pro in Norway, to drug mule, to prisoner. We learn of Rae's own restless drifting, no purpose to her life, no aims or goals, just a sequence of days to get through and occasional times to get high.

When Bernhardt tells Quinn, "Sometimes it is necessary to kill a man," Harry wants no part of it. Harry Quinn is a combat veteran and a survivor, and he can navigate through a violent landscape if things fall apart, but he isn't looking for trouble, he's just trying to get out of town with his good luck intact. Maybe that means getting back together with Rae, and maybe they'll have Sonny in tow.

Luck, however, starts to drain away like grains of sand, and intuition tells Quinn that his window of opportunity is closing. It is hard to depend on a plan when graft plays a central role, even in a place where graft seems to be a way of life. Sonny is still in prison when the avenues that could lead him back home start to close down, some closing with military barricades and some when lines of communication are cut. Guerrilla and army action disrupt life for all of Oaxaca and they disrupt the patterns and relationships that Quinn depended upon. As for Sonny, he has created more than enough bad luck for all of them.

TUGL is no summer potboiler of a novel, even though it offers plenty of suspense and danger. The story is hard and harsh, showing no sympathy and leaving many in its wake, like life itself. There are many villains and there are many victims. There are those who should survive and those who can't survive, and when they are one and the same, life and luck give Quinn and Rae pause. If they pause too long, however, they'll be dead.

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The Shadow of the Shadow by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, translated by William I. Neuman

Having neglected Latin American literature for too long, we’ll delve into this gem from noted novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II (apparently known as PIC II by his friends). The author was born in Spain but moved to Mexico nearly 50 years ago. He writes in various genres, including historical fiction, revolutionary biography and crime fiction. PIC II published a recent collaboration (The Uncomfortable Dead) with the renowned Mexican rebel leader from Chiapas, Subcomanandate Marcos of the Zapatista Revolutionary Army, or Zapatista Army of National Liberation. PIC II also started Semana Negra, or Noir Week, a week-long crime fiction festival in Gijón, the Spanish town where he was born. This is the very festival that contemporary Cuban crime writer, Amir Valle, was attending when he was declared persona non grata by the Cuban government.

The Shadow of The Shadow (TSOTS) is a novel of Mexican revolution, of ordinary men doing the extraordinary, of military and political corruption, of unions vs. the establishment, of racism, and of the bountiful variety of Mexican life, love, and the pursuit of liberty. TSOTS follows a group of domino-playing friends through adventures and perilous encounters, all of which were started by a chance observation and a subtle set of inconsistencies, and which are pursued with the undying loyalty and hunger for the truth that bind the men together.

At the very start, we meet the main cast: the poet Fermín Valencia, who is a native of Spain- Gijón no less; journalist Pioquinto Manterola; the lawyer Verdugo; and a union organizer of Chinese-Mexican heritage named Tomás Wong (or simply The Chinaman). The men are playing a regular, late-night game of backgammon in the empty, barely-lit basement bar of Mexico City’s Majestic Hotel. To say this is a motley crew would be a significant understatement, and Verdugo, whose career is fully occupied by the legal requirements of prostitutes, typifies their lives of the fringes of society. However, this is also a lovable group: they engender respect from the reader by their loyalty to each other, their bravado, their humanity, the way they bleed when cut, and an adherence to a moral code that is as clear to them as is the blue sky over Sonora.

The year is 1922. Men carry side-arms as essential accessories to any set of clothes, because these are dangerous times. The poet Valencia, who makes his living, such as it is, writing advertising jingles, is a five-foot tall, nearsighted and slightly-built combat veteran, formerly of Pancho Villa’s army. With typical bravado and vanity, Valencia wears a full mustache and tall leather boots, but almost never wears the thick glasses that he needs to see much of anything. However, Valencia's vision doesn't fail him much when he witnesses the cold-blooded assassination of a military trombonist during a performance by the First Artillery Regiment Brass Band. Being on the scene, he learns some inside information and relates it to his friends over the next games of dominoes.

That very game is interrupted by a brief and unpleasant interlude with a trio of Army officers, who refer to our friends as third-class citizens and mock Wong's Chinese heritage. Wong responds by firmly punching a lieutenant in the face. With smooth coordination, the lawyer covers his friend with a pistol and the poet prevents the downed man from drawing his pistol, leaving the officers with nothing to do but slink off. Then, things really begin to heat up.

While waiting for a sketch artist to finish illustrating an article about the recent murder of two decorated Army officers, the reporter Manterola looks out the window of his third floor newspaper office and daydreams. After inadvertently tossing his cigarette at beautiful woman on the street below, Manterola watches, stunned, as a man flies through the glass of a 3rd floor window on the opposite side of the street. Looking straight through the broken window across from him, Manterola sees a familiar face. The reporter then rushes downstairs to record the details of the dead man and his fall.

An important subplot that parallels and intersects the novel's mysteries is the struggle between union man Wong and management, who use thugs and ultimately the Army in an attempt to repress workers' rights.

Meanwhile, another game takes shape alongside dominoes, one that Holmes and Watson would enjoy, as the men discuss, puzzle through and piece together some connections that link the recent violent events. Each brings unique training and skills to the game, in addition to a shared courage, and they unravel the mystery against the backdrop of union action.

The storyline is intricate but accessible, and it pulls the reader along with well-orchestrated suspense, reflection, observation and action. This is much more than a mystery story, however. Though it is never forced or heavy-handed, the novel allows us to learn about Mexican society of the 1920's. In many ways, it isn't a pretty picture, though we come across plenty of beauty in Mexico itself: the countryside, the Mexican people (no matter how marginalized), their courage under constant fire, and the language of the author all provide a welcome and often heroic contrast to the corruption and violence that stain nearly every political and business endeavor.

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Writing and photos of Robert P. Baird; translating Books, incl. Spanish to English; Site Updates; Memoirs of my first small plane flight

I recommend that you explore digitalemunction, a site for the original writing, thoughts and photographs of Robert P. Baird of Chicago. A piece on the econometrics of hate crime particularly struck me as insightful, but I have barely scratched the surface.

If you like books, words, language and culture, you will enjoy looking at the site Life in Translation, which deals with translating Spanish into English and refers to many related sites, including one that details mistranslation in movies (films).

Both of these sites are now on my blogroll.

Speaking of mistranslation, I've occasionally been responding in languages other than English, including Spanish, German, and French, both here and on other sites (including detectives beyond borders and crimespace). These efforts have pretty weak outside of Spanish and the occasional word, say, of Swedish or some form of the Norwegian language that I have picked up "along the avenue" (I never asked for an explanation of the different forms of Norwegian while I was there, though I did hear some discussion of Bokmål and Nynorsk/New Norsk one dark, cold winter night in about 1980 while warming by the fire after an exhausting day of cross country skiing). Thanks for your patience with my foreign language efforts.

I have been cleaning up my site to try to make up for my lack of knowledge when I started the blog. Expert status remains elusive, but here we go: some previously invisible links are now visible (like links to two of Gary Disher's books that I really enjoyed). In addition to these technical issues, some comments have been clarified or amplified. These include the mention of Tourette Syndrome, as part of my very brief remarks on the unusual nature of Jonathan Lethem's terrific novel Motherless Brooklyn. These edits, including the continual cleanup of typographical errors, are more obvious on the RSS feed than on the native blog itself. I guess many of you know why.

I think should disclose Cara Black is now a friend due to a very kind and generous email exchange. This will not slow down my commentary on her wonderful detective stories set in Paris, or on any other of Soho Press/Soho Crime's many first-rate volumes.

The list of Labels on the right hand side of the page may be annoyingly long, but it will help you find anything on the site. As a possible aid to the blogosphere, technorati tags are being inserted throughout, rather exhaustively. I'm not how smart the technorati search engine is. If you have any thought on these matters, I'd be happy to hear them.

I have finished Jonathan Lethem's book You Don't Love Me Yet, but I'm not yet sure what to say about it. I won't rush it. So here instead is something I wrote the other day in response to Annalee Blysse asking about people's experiences with small planes (the date is accurate +/- one year):

"I took my first flight in a small plane in 1975. The pilot was a friend from high school and we were college freshmen at the time. I never really thought about it for a second, until right after take-off. Then I became distinctly aware of the fact that I was in a tin can, and not a heavy duty one, bouncing all over the place. So, I had a quick decision to make: do I panic because my buddy is taking me to my death in a flimsy piece of junk that has just launched into the sky, or do I sit back and enjoy the ride? Luckily, I was able to accomplish the latter. Panic didn't seem like a helpful or practical solution to anything. Later, we flew into Mexico for a couple of trips and slept under the wings- just imagine customs & immigration checks on a couple of kids with a plane! Just imagine not being able to raise the tower (in Spanish or English) at Guaymas, and then having a 727 pull in right behind us and almost blow us away (literally). Ah, those were the days."

Annalee recommends http://www.flork.com/ (Flork: Meet new people Webwide) for book promotion. Comments are most appreciated, as always.

© James K. Bashkin, 2007

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Queen of the South, Club Dumas, Fencing Master, Seville Communion, Nautical Chart

Let's step away from Tibet and China for a moment to discover and briefly discuss Arturo Perez-Reverte, Spain, Mexico and a wild ride across the continent of Europe. This selection of books spans the very broad range of this master storyteller from Spain.

(a) The Fencing Master is a period-piece swashbuckler, with a twist or two or ten- a joy to read, a thrilling ride, and offering a secret fencing move. I read it a while ago. Having fenced on foil for a short while in college, and on epee in graduate school, betrays a lifelong fascination with the sport and the art that makes me readily susceptible to such stories: as a youngster I read The Scarlet Pimpernel and other books, like the Prisoner of Zenda, that hark back to days when evil men left scars on the faces of their antagonists, and Royalty was going in and out of favor throughout Europe. The Perez-Reverte book is more detailed about life, politics, history and its characters than Pimpernel or Zenda were, and is written with much richer language, though the latter two books remain a good summer reading (and the Scarlet Pimpernel will show you a thing or two about the French revolution). Perez-Reverte's book was apparently made into a feature film in Europe, but that doesn't seem readily available. A pity, perhaps, because little goes together as well as a good sword, a beautiful and mysterious woman who fences brilliantly, and an old master with all the moves.





(b) The Club Dumas is a contemporary supernatural thriller with antiquarian leanings, also brought to the silver screen, with temptation lurking around every corner and salvation perhaps nowhere to be found. It rushes through Europe faster than a middle school class on Spring Break: I used an Atlas a few times (and I've lived in Europe). It was made into a film starring Johnny Depp and directed by Roman Polanski (a favorite director of mine). The movie is entertaining. The book is intriguing- it pulled me into its riddles and mysteries, and a very good read.







(c) The Nautical Chart, a contemporary story of greed intertwined with sunken treasure from the Spanish empire, a ne'er do well sailor cut from the same cloth as Philip Marlowe, and museum curators: it contains some of the most brutal and tragic betrayal imaginable, along with wonderful seafaring, diving, that ever-elusive Jesuit treasure, and navigational mysteries and histories around the treacherous waters off Spain and Gibraltar.




(d) The Seville Communion, a story where where Vatican enforcers battle (apparently) a small parish church in Seville. Defending the church may be a set of miracles along with those parishioners who would like to prevent it from being sold off knocked down in the name of progress. Is the church really protecting itself? Are the results of miracles being witnessed? Who is the brilliant computer hacker who has penetrated Vatican accounts, and what prices must be paid when you do get want you want? How many bodies will be sacrificed? To what lengths will the church, the enforcer and the ladies of of the church go? Read it and find out!


e) The Queen of the South, is my pick for book of your book of the year (it already was mine a while back). The story starts with drug running from Mexico to the US, in a world where dying well enough to earn a personal folk song (corrido, or narco-corrido) is the highest ambition of many of the foot soldiers. Things move abruptly to North Africa and Spain, and eventually return to the scene of the first page, back in Mexico. The story does not have a linear timeline, it begins at the end, or just before the end, and then backtracks through the long journey from home, abroad, and back again. We follow the rise of a remarkable woman from naive drug moll, running scared with good reason, to the greatest heights of the international drug trade. Much of her education comes from a stay in Spanish prison after yet another of her men has died on the job (running drugs around treacherous coastlines while dealing with fast pursuit from naval ships and helicopters). Being her friend is exhilarating until it ends your life, one way or another, but there may be no greater glory than do die in the service of the Queen. Your song will be forever sung.

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