Stongly recommended by Bonnie! Again!http://eleventhstack.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/1001-dalmatians-err-holds-on-dan-browns-new-novel/UPDATE: This book made me late to work today. I missed my stop on the el, which is something that NEVER happens. So... engrossing? Yes! ( )

British travel writer Richard Grant (who lives in Arizona) recently spent some travel time in the Sierra Madre mountains of northwest Mexico. It is home to narco gangsters, bandits, crippling poverty and general lawlessness. The murder rate in some areas is 10 times the worst American inner cities with some small villages completely wiped out in blood feuds (imagine Hatfield and McCoy). It is the Wild West and begins just 20 miles from the US border of Arizona.

God's Middle Finger is the type of book I call "Dark Tourism", intentionally going into the "World's Most Dangerous Places" simply for the thrill of it. Books like this let the reader feel better about their relative security and comfort, however they rarely capture what it's really like for someone living there. By foregrounding the dangerous and violent aspects for the sake of a rush, it's difficult to know if we are really seeing an accurate picture of what the people are really like, or rather seen through the eyes of a thrill seeking tourist. It's not my intention to be polemical because there are some positive things that can be said about this book. If your able to look past Grants adrenalin fueled focus on murder and gangsters, the book is a great way to learn about some of the history and people of the Sierra Madre region of Mexico; and the nature of the Mexican drug crime problem in general. It is sorely lacking a map, but I was able to trace some of his route using Google Maps, which combined with the satellite view, provides some visual measure of the extreme topography that has made it a favorite haunt of outlaws.

The book starts and ends with a high adrenalin frame story involving an encounter with bandits - I found it too good to be true, too novelistic, and too easily invented (relatives of Pancho Villa?) - we will never know but most of the book seems credible enough. Overall I credit Grant with stoking my interest in reading more about the region (there is an excellent bibliography). Many of the themes, in particular "honor cultures", can also be found in Deliverance, it's a good coda and a little closer to home for those fascinated by the dialectic between lawful society and honor cultures.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )

Whoa. - Travel in the Sierra Madre is not for the feint of heart. It is foolhardy and usually fatal. I am so glad that this man survived to write about it because it is a thoroughly entertaining wild ride from the safety of my armchair. ( )

You know that a) this is going be good and b) this is going to be different than anything you've ever read when the opening chapter finds the author being pursued by 2 crazy men with guns in the middle of the night out in the wilds of Durango, Mexico. Naturally, after you read that chapter, with a cliffhanger for an ending, you have to wonder how he got into this predicament and you're hooked. This book just didn't let up. Grant decides that he wants to traverse the Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range just south of the border between Arizona & Mexico. The Sierra Madre goes south from there , for about 900 or so miles -- with canyons that are deeper than our Grand Canyon, with mines, caves, cliffs, potholed roads, little towns, drug farms and a variety of people. He begins his trip with a friend telling him not to do it but this doesn't stop Grant. Everywhere he goes he makes a new contact to help him into the areas where gringos should not be travelling alone -- often dangerous, often a bit hostile, filled with testosterone that leaks from the aura of Mexican male machismo. It's the kind of Wild West lawlessness and total anarchy that intrigues him and he finds what he's looking for everywhere he goes. At first the author really got into his journey, but after some bandit encounters, policemen trying to set him up while they share cocaine with him, the negative treatment of women by said macho men, and a brush with death, the author has had enough. But the getting there, for the reader, is a fun and wild ride that I won't soon forget. What a great book! Along with his own travels and travails, he's thrown in historical accounts of the area, biographical info about those who've lived and traveled there, and some interesting facts about the pointless war on drugs fought by the US that we're never going to win because of the huge drug economy stemming from the Sierra Madre. Incredibly interesting -- you won't want to put the book down.

Very highly recommended. I would think that most people would enjoy this book, especially people who like a sort of gonzo-feel to their reading. ( )