Alfredo Corchado

Great Prose, Great History

Corchado's prose is fantastic. It is succinct and very understandable. His descriptions of people and places ring true. He is an excellent writer, making it easy to fly through "Midnight in Mexico."

This book follow the author, a veteran journalist, as he deals with a threat against his life for reporting about Mexico's drug war. In the midst of this main story, Corchado discusses life in two cultures, his love interest, his family, and poverty in Mexico. He also show more gives an excellent, albeit brief, history of the drug trade from Mexico to the United States. I would love to see Corchado write more about that history.

There are two reasons for not giving this book five stars: 1) Corchado jumped the timeline a few times and I got lost, and 2) the jacket gave me the impression this book was a story about Corchado trying to dig up information for stories rather than dealing with himself as the story. show less

The best line in the book belongs to Angela: "You have stopped being a reporter...you are part of the story now. You're so close now, you can't even divide the lines." This is such an interesting topic, but Corchado's made a gonzo-journalism, mixed format mess of it. It could have been a novel, a report, a memoir, or a history...instead it is all of those things and doesn't do any particularly well. You get a little about the history of Mexico, the border, Mexcian-American relations, Mexican show more food and music, the reporter's thoughts on his doomed relationship, family drama, and the beat reporter lifestyle...I can't rate lower because at times I enjoyed the perspective, but I can't rate higher because there's too much sense of a missed opportunity. show less

Will Mexico ever become less corrupt and finally join the rest of the western world?
Do the drug cartels run the government?
Can you ever go back to your birth country and see it for what it is?
Who was responsible for killing so many women in Juárez in 2007-2010?
The answers to these questions and many others can be found in this fantastic book.

A great look into the Mexican migration to the US and how it has changed over the years. The details on how the politics in Mexico and the US have ebbed and flowed gave great insight into how things have come to be now. I had a personal interest having grown up near Philadelphia and frequented Tequilas (and met David).