Customer Reviews

Uncomfortable Dead

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Oh, good, good, good! El Sup Marcos and Paco Taibo collaborate to write a contemporary thriller...with a cast of characters straight out of the newspapers. It's neat. It's funny. It's extraordinarily well done: Marcos wrote the odd-numbered chapters, and Taibo wrote the even-numbered ones...and the two of them take the reader from Chiapas to México (the city)and a dozen other places. The two authors grab bits and pieces from the Dirty War in México (about which most [North] Americans remain typically ignorant), and from there through to current times. Surely there is no other revolutionist in all of history who has co-authored a detective story while in the midst of the revolution that he helped create - and that continues to grip peoples from all over the world. Taibo is Taibo, and writes like he always does: very well, and with a canny eye for nuance and flavor. Marcos provides a glimpse into himself that shows another entire facet of this fascinating individual. Together, the two of them accomplish something subtle and rewarding...the reader's surprise is just the gravy. A good, fun read, but it may be difficult for persons without an understanding of contemporary México to enjoy it as much as do others. A WARNING, however: it will make you desperate for good street-corner tacos and warm orange soda, that's for sure.

Taibo is a really good writer and an interesting one too. His social views are revolutionary (in both meanings of the word); his detective (Belascoaran) is fun, particularly if you like foreign procedurals with a bit of noir; but in this book the construct of several voices all intermingled is somewhat confusing. I don't think anyone should start with this book, but like all of Taibo, it is worthwhile reading.

I thought that having alternate chapters be written by two different people was an annoying gimmick for the most part - especially when one is a good writer and the other is less so. By the end I was caught up in the story but, as someone that isn't really familiar with Mexican politics over the last several decades, it was a little harder than usual to feel like I was really "getting" some of the points being made.