The Uncomfortable Dead

The usual plot synopsis with which I start my reviews is almost impossible to provide in this instance. The chapters alternate between Marcos’ story and Taibo’s. Marco’s chapters are narrated by a variety of characters including Elias Contreras, a detective in the Zapatista movement and who investigates missing persons cases (among other things) and a gay Filipino mechanic with a skinhead haircut. Taibo’s chapters feature his most well-known character: independent (private) detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne who is asked by a ‘progressive official’ to look into some messages being left on his answering machine by a man he once knew but whom he believes died in 1969. Eventually the two stories collide when a person known only as Morales is sought by both investigators. That is about as much detail I can provide without getting terribly surreal.

Because the book is utterly absurd. It isn’t any of the things you might look for in a mystery novel. Much of it is narrated by a man we know to be dead, some stretches talk about the book itself being written (in the same way that some TV characters break the ‘fourth wall’ and talk to the camera), there really isn’t a linear progression or a single story and much of the action seems completely irrelevant to anything else. Despite all this, or maybe because of it, I did enjoy the book. Or at least the first half of it.

Not that I’ve ever given it a moment’s thought before now but if I had done I doubt I would have presumed that a leader of a revolutionary army would be a closet comedian but Marcos has missed his calling. Most of his part of the story is told from Elias’ point of view who is somewhat plodding investigator who recounts the events he is involved in with an almost childlike naivety. It’s a bit gimmicky but genuinely funny too and his innocence provides a good device for explaining things that most readers won’t, presumably, know much about such as the mechanics of running a revolutionary group.

However at a point about half-way through the book Marcos’ chapters switch into political diatribe mode which is where my interest dipped severely. There are pages (and pages) of mini-essays about the search for bad and evil which, you’ll not be surprised to learn, is generally discovered to be the fault of George W Bush or the American DEA or the CIA or a handful of the other entities that the left traditionally blames for the world’s ailments. As always I find it tiresome to be lectured at in my fiction regardless of how much I might concur with the sentiments expressed but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised given one of the authors is a left wing revolutionary and there’s a very prominent pull-quote from [a:Naomi Klein|419|Naomi Klein|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206848797p2/419.jpg] on the copy I read.

That glaring annoyance aside there was still plenty to enjoy here. Taibo’s character, the one-eyed, limping, coke-drinking Héctor Belascoarán Shayne is superb. Who can’t love a man who says of a poem Now that was a real poem, one of those that grabs you by the nuts and squeezes softly until the pain becomes an idea? I’ll definitely be seeking out a book featuring him written by Taibo alone. And although I won’t claim to have understood all the local or political references (I’d have been lost without google) I did get the sense that the book accurately depicts a version of Mexico that is very real for many people.

I’m not sure I can recommend this book to everyone as I know some would find it unfathomable or frustrating and can even imagine that if I had read this book at a different time in my own life I might have dismissed it as drivel. But if you are the type of reader who can suspend a need for order and sensibleness, or are looking for a book that provides an almost tangible sense of its geographical and political setting then I would suggest tracking down a copy (my local library had one which I found pleasantly astonishing). The closest comparison I can think of is that it’s a bit like a David Lynch movie, only with humour. ( )

One author, Subcomandante Marcos of the Chiapas Zapatistas, is funny and hurts, exploring Mexican evil and good. The other, academic mystery writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, is hopeless and wonderful, stumbling thru Mexico City with his engineer detective going after the bad guys with his plumber, upholsterer and sewage system engineer officemates. Mystery writing at its best, revealing a life (or death). Or maybe a bunch of them in a culture that that is too tangled to completely unravel. Even by a distant descendant of Sam Spade. ( )

This book is actually written by Marcos and Paco Ignacio Taibo II--Library Thing should add Taibo as an author. Excellent book--I hate to say better than Taibo's other work, but Marcos' bitter tongue in cheek added to Taibo's cynical tongue in cheek gives you, even translated into English, a wonderful read--think Ken Bruen south of the border. ( )

This exhilarating collaboration fuses the vast talents of the world's most literary revolutionary and its most politically savvy detective novelist. Replete with up-to-the-minute references to Mexican politics, the novel was first published in weekly installments in La Jornada, the Mexico City newspaper that for 11 years has been Subcomandante Marcos's primary outlet in the conventional media; its conclusion appeared on February 20 of this year. Written alternately by the authors, who had only sporadic contact, the chapters were each complete in just a few days. Despite the peculiar working conditions, the story flows and often soars. Taibo's familiar Mexico City detective, Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, joins forces with a Zapatista investigator to track some villains whose misdeeds are emblematic of the crimes of the Mexican government in its treatment of dissidents during the "dirty war" and its more recent repression of indigenous groups in Chiapas. The chapters written by Marcos, while earnestly serious about the issues they address, are often hilariously unconventional: some of his characters know they're in a novel, and many poke fun at Marcos himself, who is a key character in the book. Taibo's expertise in the genre paces the story and keeps it grounded. The essential compatibility of these writers, as each astutely riffs on themes suggested by the other, maintains the work's integrity. Another unifying element is their shared regard for Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, the recently deceased Spanish master of the novela negra, who was a friend of both; he and his detective, Pepe Carvajal, appear throughout. The publication of this rich text is a literary event. Ardently recommended for all libraries and bookstores. ( )