Customer Reviews

Crossers: A Novel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book moved back and forth between two stories, much as several of its characters cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. The primary story is that of Gil Castle, a highly successful Wall Street financial analyst (net worth: "low eight figures") whose wife was on the plane that smashed into the north tower on 9/11. In an attempt to recover from the grief that paralyzed him for two years after this disaster, he moves to his cousin's huge Arizona cattle ranch, which is right on the Mexican border.

Life on the ranch offers many diversions, including a heated romance, but some of the diversions are less than idyllic. Drug smugglers and people smugglers (coyotes) use the ranch as an entrepôt to the U.S. Castle finds himself in the middle, literally.

The other story is that of Ben Erskine, Castle's grandfather, and the grandfather of Blaine Erskine, the ranch owner. Through flashbacks, Ben's life unfolds from 1903-1951. Ben was a violent man, with a boiling temper. He worked on both sides of the law, once serving as a county sheriff. He played a role in the violence that characterized revolutionary Mexico in the early twentieth century. His grandson, Blaine, also has a very short fuse.

I thought the first two thirds (total: 448 pages) dragged more than just a bit. I felt little empathy for Gil Castle and found his transformation from Wall Street rich guy to Arizona pistol-packing cowboy improbable. But it does pick up and builds to a spellbinding conclusion, which earns five stars. Veteran author Philip Caputo brings great insight into the human condition to this work. He develops fascinating portrayals of such characters as Yvonne Menéndez, vicious, vengeful drug queen, and The Professor, a cunning operative with a bizarre distortion of sight and smell.

My husband and I retired to southern New Mexico three years ago from the east coast. While on the east coast I told many of my friends that I intended to join a group that provided water for illegal immigrants crossing the border into NM. Seeing and reading about the problems caused by the "crossers" forced me to have second thoughts. Caputo's book finalized my concerns. He does an absolutely excellent job of presenting the multiple sides of the issue of crossers. A couple of characters sympathize with the illegal immigrants for all the reasons humanity presents: life is better here; they do the jobs no one else wants to do; the Statue of Liberty; etc. The characters who oppose illegal immigration are portrayed in many ways: those who just don't like immigrants; those who think there should be a "Great Wall" to keep them out; those who are concerned about the danger of the illegal crossings, etc. Caputo also extensively addresses the issue of the drug cartels and the mayhem and danger they have added to the issues. Where Caputo does an outstanding job is to bring all of these stories together, and to throw in some historical background with characters who originally worked and owned the land during the Mexican Revolution. Unless you live along the Borderlands you likely do not have a full picture of what is going on here -- newspapers on the east coast (and probably most of the US) tell isolated stories, some heart-wrenching, and some seriously overblown. Caputo, through his characters, presents an accurate view of the issues, forces the reader to consider good and bad aspects of the illegal crossings, and demonstrates how quickly things can turn bad even with the best of intentions. Folks -- the fence won't solve anything -- read this book, talk to your friends and contact your congressmen -- we need a better policy. Urge policy-makers to read this book.

Crossers combines history, adventure, and romance with a message about how
the past haunts the present. Caputo skillfully interweaves Old West tales of
mysterious renegade lawman Ben Erskine with the story of Ben's descendants,
including Gil Castle, who tries to escape the pain of losing his wife in the
9/11 attacks by crossing from East to West, specifically to the family's
ranch on the Arizona-Mexico border. There, he confronts a different kind of
violence, as he copes with modern-day outlaws trafficking in drugs and human
cargo--migrants crossing from south to north to make a new life. The
characters really come to life, especially the unique Yvonne, a drug
queenpin with major attitude, and The Professor, who works both sides of the
border and the law. A richly rewarding read.

I dashed out to buy Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Philip Caputo's, latest novel after reading an enthusiastic review in my local newspaper. I was unfamiliar with this author, but I was intrigued by the promise of a burly border tale. I was not disappointed. This is a generational saga and epic of the southwest, bristling with illegal border crossers and warring drug cartels, studded with outlaws and vaqueros. A dense book, it starts rather slowly, gradually lassoing the reader into a complex, emotional story brittle with sepulchral secrets and spilling with scoured grief.

Gil Castle, a Wall Street broker broken by the death of his wife in the tragic events of 9/11, lives day to day in suicidal agony. At the advice of his grown daughters, he has submitted to therapy. However, the platitudes of "healing" and "closure" bring him even further to the brink of despair. He prefers to read the intellectual, reflective stoics, such as Seneca, or the Greek tragedian, Aeschylus; they speak to him with a deep and thoughtful gravitas. He rebuffs what he considers the psychobabble of grief counseling, of America's proposition that we weren't meant to suffer for long periods of time, "as if grief were something like digestion." As a last grasp for hope, he decides to leave New York and move to a small cabin in fictional Patagonia, a berg in the desert of the Arizona-Mexico border, where his cousin still owns and operates a cattle ranch that has been in the family for a century. His maternal grandfather, Ben Erskine, pioneered this business, the San Ignacio Cattle Company. What Gil and the reader gradually discover is that this sprawling ranch is riddled with "ghosts and bones."

Two main narrative threads emerge, each with its distinct flavor, tone, and color. The author creates a scintillating outlaw tale of the early twentieth century that is both chilly and taut, ripe and ropy. The actions of Gil's desperado descendants alternate with the modern-day fable of family and the open graves of grief. The story seamlessly goes back and forth from Gil's twenty-first century tale to Ben Erskine's of a hundred years ago. Peppered throughout are letters and interviews with Gil's relatives from mid-century. Caputo heightens the broad western tale with an astute character study, giving us some salty figures a la Cormac McCarthy meets Larry McMurtry, but branding his own mark and riding in his own saddle.

CROSSERS keeps its narrative focus, even as the subplots spread and the landscape widens. The vengeance and violence of the drug runners and border crossers keep the pace tight and the action grisly, as well as reticulate the ancestral histories and hatreds between and within families and neighbors. Moreover, the subplots serve as allegory and as metaphor to the wide divides of the human heart, and to the sorrows and histories that threaten to bury us in modern and distant tragedies.

Some of the characters are a little contrived or thin, although there are some, like Ben and Blaine, who are vibrant, blunt, and truculent, knotted like a fist. Gil's unbridled Midas touch is a bit too convenient at times, but it is a minor affliction. Additionally, the author laid on the idea of evil terrorists a bit thick in the beginning of the novel--but, thankfully, to a larger purpose, which became evident as the story leavened. I am reluctant to discuss my controversial perceptions of 9/11 in any detail, except that I initially considered abandoning the story. Yet my instincts told me to persevere, that this wasn't a polemical novel. Fortunately, the author's dynamism eclipsed the indictments and he keenly underscored the dreadful, wretched terrorists that roam our souls--the penetrating terrorists that inhabit the psyche and scream from our hearts--the terrorism of the unconsoled.

I have read complaints (of earlier works) by a few readers that Caputo's storytelling is too expository and more suited to journalism. Occasionally, CROSSERS is indulgent and immoderate, and I can see vestiges of the tendency. But he reined himself in and penned a captivating, sweeping story. Even with the minor flaws, this is a powerful, piquant tapestry of a tale.

CROSSERS is an amazing read-- layer upon layer we are introduced to the complexities of border life from all the different angles-- the women characters clearly holding their own with the men-- the Hispanic balanced against the Anglo. This book is so well researched and perfectly detailed, that you might check the back cover to see if it is fiction or non-fiction. (Note: Caputo's masterpiece-- A Rumor of War.) As any superior narrator, he remains above judgment, and shows the flip sides of all equations-- the suffering of the left-for-dead Mexican worker used by the soulless drug machine where women are as ruthless as men, the right wing rancher, the man who plays both sides of the line, the eastern/newcomer recovering from his own personal grief only to witness more of it. Grudges die hard in the wild west, and neither side truly forgets. But more than a tale of revenge, this is also a redeeming story of the heart-- where a man loses the love of his life, only to find his life (and love) again on this bloody border. Linking the terrorism of 9/11 to that of this unforgiving desert, one stands aside to observe the horrors while being transported by Caputo's masterful story-telling..

Just after reading this well written novel, I received my 'Cattleman's' magazine which had a long article warning of dangers along the Texas border. The descriptions of the problems faced by Texas ranchers could have been lifted verbatim from the pages of 'Crossers'.

Like so many, I first became aware of this fine writer through his great Vietnam War memoir, A Rumor of War, back in the late seventies, but was led to Philip Caputo's greater body of work after reading his recent piece in Atlantic Monthly, describing the savagery of conditions along the Mexican border, as the drug war spills over into the United States.

With the war correspondent's keen understanding of conflict, sharpened by his witness to a similar rending of the social contract in Beirut, his presence in the Sinai as Egyptian and Israli armies were hurled across the sands, his travel among the Afghan mujahadeen as they endeavored to extirpate the Soviet occupation, Caputo brings these frightening current events into the broader context of history in his 2009 book, Crossers, a title which refers, alike, to drug mules and the desperate hoards of north-bound migrants seeking respite from poverty and terror.

Set in present-day borderline Arizona, where U.S. and Mexican cultures have interfaced for centuries, this great contemporary novel lays out an American history, tracing present day conflicts back to their 19th century roots, and giving us the sight, sound, color, taste, smell and motion of a dynamic and unsettled culture: the violence of the drug cartels unfolding against a backdrop of Huachuca Mountains and vast Sonoran Desert, pulling American ranchers and law enforcement inexorably into the conflict.

Even the relevance of 9/11 is included in this great adventure novel, which is equal parts contemporary thriller and traditional western. You will understand a great deal more about America as you see it through the compassionate eyes of one of our great writers.

Gil Castle, a Wall Street executive, is trying to recover from the loss of his wife on 9/11. He takes up the invitation from his cousins to get away to the family ranch on the border in Arizona.

Gil and Blaine are descendents of Ben Erskine, somewhat of a local legend. Ben was a man of adventure and had many skeletons in his closet. Blaine is thought to be a copy of Ben.

After finding a starving illegal on the property, Gil and Blaine are thrust into the middle of the Mexican drug turf war.

Caputo writes a multi-generational story of a ranch family on the US-Mexican border that highlights the current problems on the border. His technique of switching between Ben's life story and the current situation makes for great reading experience.

I highly recommend this book. Once again Caputo has done an excellent job.

Astonishing story about a diverse set of characters. I agree that at first the many characters were a bit confusing, but as I read on, they all melded into a great story about Arizona, back in the early 1900s and around 2003.

Living in Arizona for years, I am fully cognizant of the many problems resulting from illegal immigration, and especially the massive amount of drug smuggling. I can empathize with the desire of illegal immigrants to want a better life, but the human trafficking of many of these people by unscrupulous "coyotes" and drug cartels, is heartbreaking. I expected the book to lean heavily one way or the other on the matter of illegal immigration, but a variety of opinions on the subject were delineated by the different characters.

I could not help but keep an eye out for misrepresentations of facts about Arizona, but he wrote extensively about the border counties in the state with amazing accuracy. The only thing I could find wrong that he kept referring to "the monsoons." The monsoon here is a season of often heavy rain, and there are only a couple, one in summer and one around December. The definition of it is a change in the prevailing wind, and here it means storms come from the southwest, bringing the needed moisture. This is a silly nitpick I admit, but I had to find something wrong, being a picker of nits.

Nevertheless, it was an intriguing story, very accurate and sadly included a lot of violence, which is a fact of life on the border.

The only disappointment was I thought the ending was a bit abrupt. After all these pages of fascinating stories, he could have devoted a little more to resolving exactly what happened after he ended it. Ah, well, it was still great and well worth reading.

I think Philip Caputo is one of our finest contemporary authors. Acts of Faith, his terrific novel on Contemporary Africa and the politics of aid organizations, was a riveting read. I also found his feature article in The Atlantic Monthly on Mexico's Drug War one of the more compelling reads on the madness and often unacknowledged co-dependency between the US and its southern neighbor. As well, I live in Mexico and follow the political, cultural and economical disaster it has become closely. I therefore had high hopes for Crossers, which turned out to be too long, too dull, too slow. There were no surprises in Caputo's novel. Indeed, the sections on early Mexico/US border adventures were far more compelling than the chapters on current affairs. Sadly, his characters were thinly drawn and their actions entirely expected. I struggled for several days with Acts of Faith, picking it up and putting it down and picking it up again as you do with novels by writers you like. Frustrated with the slow pace, more than three quarters done, I caved in and flipped to the final chapter, discovering the all too predictable ending. Had the characters been more complex, had I cared for them just a little bit, I may have finished. Sadly, that was not the case.