Battles in the Desert and Other Stories

The subject of this book, “one of the most widely read and celebrated novels in contemporary Mexican literature,” is a Mexico that doesn’t, or at least didn’t, often find its way into much of its literature: poverty, the class system, the enormous impact of popular culture (especially that “imported” from the USA), endemic corruption, Mexico’s place in the postwar world. All this is present and plays a role in the “adventures” of a pre-teen middle-class boy in Mexico City during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is a story told in retrospect and Pacheco is exceptionally good at understanding and depicting the point of view of children, especially the demands, restraints, needs, and passions that that age involves. The show more subjects of these interlinked stories vary widely—the death (and disposal) of a pet cat, mock battles between “Jews” and “Arabs” at recess, a visit to an abandoned church, infatuation with a friend’s young and beautiful mother—but all are told with the unique combination of intensity and ingenuousness common to kids that age as they begin to experience and understand the world. Pacheco’s deceptively simply language belies a powerful indictment and a rare insight into a country too often deeply misunderstood (at least in the USA). show less

This is a book of short stories that take place in a city in northern Mexico. The main characters are a group of boys growing up and going to school together. It wasn't until the last story, the one that gives its title to the book, did all the relationships within the stories come together. The storyteller, the main character is a sensitive, youngest child in a wealthy family. It is not until the end that he realizes the corruption and privilege he's been growing up in.

The stories are well-told and believable as the experience of a boy growing up.