INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH

There were eight of us on Thursday March 26th at Libby's house for the discussion of this multifaceted book:  Margie, Saran, Marylib, Paige, Annie, Joan, and Sheri.  On the surface it was an adventurous odyssey, yet came off as a funny, light book which confused some readers because essentially it was a book about lives torn apart by the border between the US and Mexico.  The small Sinaloan coastal village of Tres Camerones had experienced what many small Mexican villages do: all the men of working age left for the "north", Los Yunaitas.  The young women left behind were determined to travel across the border and bring back at least seven men to their village, to defend it from banditos.  The traveling characters were at once cartoonish and substantive, young women, the leader Nayeli, and her good dependable friend Tacho who was gay, and two other young girls from the village.  They headed north leaving behind Aunt Irma the mayor of the village and the older men.

We all agreed that the author Urrea was certainly an atmospheric writer, but some felt the tone was confusing and who really was it about or was it just a slice of life?  Some felt that it was a fun book and never took it seriously but others felt that the seriousness of the issue of the border and what we know lately about wanting a wall gave the book some tension.  Behind the fun there was an awareness of the desperation of the people who want to better their lives.  There were a couple in the group who enjoyed the cross USA drive, going by town after town and state after state, for Nayeli to find her father in Kankakee Illinois, a town that actually one of us knew welcomes immigrants.  The fact that Nayeli does not actually make contact with her father makes her quest seem to be a quest of fantasy and dreams that is shared by so many immigrants, of expectations of life in the US which may not happen or be realistic.  And in the end the characters are dreaming of what they left at home, the taco shop, the village, even Atomico, the Tijuana ruffian who is a super hero that comes to help the little group from Tres Camerones, has nostalgia for his abode near the garbage in Tijuana.

Libby had just gotten back from DC and had sat next to a man on the plane who was going to give a speech to the Inter American Development Bank on the fact that in about 2005 to 2008 there was a housing boom in the US and many villages in Mexico emptied of their men going north to work construction.  Then when the crash came in 2008 to 2009, there was an exodus back to the villages with various positive and negative outcomes.  What a coincidence! I did so want to talk with him more but the plane was landing and off he went.  Getting back late from the airport, I stopped at una tienda Mexicana and got these treats for the group!

It was a good discussion about a book that had both realistic and fantastic parts to it.