On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel (Hardcover)

by Tony Cohan (Author) "JANUARY 1985. THERE IS NO AIRPORT directly serving San Miguel de Allende..." (more)
Key Phrases: red refrigerator, San Miguel, Mexico City, Calle Flor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In the mid-1980s, Tony Cohan and his artist wife, Masako, decided they had had enough of the hectic pace and inherent insecurities of life in Los Angeles and made tracks for the historic town of San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. At first they rented rooms in a hotel. Then, when the hotel became less appealing, they graduated to renting an apartment. Almost inevitably, they eventually found themselves buying a 250-year-old hacienda on the verge of collapse, with wonderfully elegant Spanish colonial architecture and a garden brimming with papayas, avocados, and custard apples.

What followed was a love affair with a country and its people that has endured. On Mexican Time is a lyrical attempt to capture the Mexican magic that bewitched the two of them. Cohan introduces us to a quirky cast of Mexicans and expats, including murderers, idealists, philanderers, and writers. Spanning 15 years, the book conveys something of the curiously intangible passage of time, as we watch girls become mothers, marriages drift apart, and friends come and go. The text is rich with sensuous details, and Cohan is excellent at conveying the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of a country that he clearly adores.

On Mexican Time is much less of a glib chronicle than other books of the "charming new life in paradise" genre. Although he is not averse to the odd moment of portentousness, Cohan makes a gentle and elegant guide through the experiences of expat life in San Miguel. --Toby Green

From Publishers Weekly
In 1985, novelist and travel writer Cohan (Canary; Secular and Sacred) and his wife, Masako, traveled on a whim to the colorful Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende, where fireworks sputter from wooden towers on feast days, "mariachi singers' plangent howls" season the air, "cats roam the rooftops unimpeded" and "history, religion and ceremony soften the effects of change." Lured back for repeated visits, the Cohans finally made their home there. Casual yet studied in tone, this ode to Cohan's adopted town and nation devotes much space to San Miguel's legends, ancient and modern. The local nunnery's founder, who turned worms into butterflies, may be more fiction than fact. Cohan's acquaintance Ren?, though, is real enough: the story of the murder that the locals believe he committed dominates a disturbing chapter called "The Man Who Was Killed Twice." Hospitality vies with inefficiency to make Cohan's Mexico a place of surprising ease and random hazards: "Mexican buses are reliable, cheap, and safe," but Mexican highway patrolmen demand bribes or worse; a friend of Cohan's dies when a hospital can't get her blood type. The Mexican day seems to last longer, and "nothing happens between two and four." Cohan also presents less serious downsides to his calmer Mexican lifestyle, explaining why it took him so long to get a verandah built on his 250-year-old house. The last few years have seen San Miguel become a destination for hip tourists: Cohan's pleasant account of its former obscurity may send his fans to further crowd its streets. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (January 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767903188
• ISBN-13: 978-0767903189
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,017 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good description of la vida mexicana., August 16, 2000

By	T. J. Mathews (Livermore, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

All in all, "On Mexican Time" is a pretty good read if you want to find out a little about living in Mexico and the people (both natives and imports) that you will encounter there.

In their fifteen years in San Miguel de Allende Tony and Masako gain a pretty good appreciation for the Mexican way of life. I'm not saying they adopted that way of life because, from beginning to end, they both remained very much norteamericanos (Spanish PC for gringo). I, too, have lived in Mexico and I believe that those of us born north of the border will never fully understand all the elements that make up the Mexican psyche, and visa versa. Who we are, as a culture, is a concatenation of centuries of historical, theological and sociological factors. It is unlikely that any of us can fully understand why another culture acts the way it does.

Nevertheless, Cohan aptly portrays the `sabor' of `la vida mexicana'. His descriptions of the joys and sorrows of the Mexican nationals and the quirky behavior of the expatriates bring clearly to mind many people I have known. While I haven't been to San Miguel de Allende his description of the city; its streets, shops, festivals and homes, is a very accurate portrayal of many other cities in Mexico.

On the down side, he could have done with a lot less about all their shopping. If I read the words `plaid bolsa' one more time it will be too many. While some description of the differences between our two cultures is in order, I feel like I've just read his entire grocery list for the past 15 years.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The good and bad, February 18, 2000

By A Customer

Having lived and worked in a town near San Miguel de Allende I enjoyed this book. It brought back lots of memories of the area and people. Being able to picture every city, street, and building that Cohan mentioned, since I have seen them all, helped to create wonderful imagery for me. I do think it is important to point out that San Miguel is really a tourist town. There are lost ex-pats living there and everyone speaks english and many times prefer english to espanol. Rich Texans take weekend vacations there and only the wealthy Mexicans can afford to visit a place so important in their history. (Many of my Mexican friends call it Saint Michael - because of all the Americans). In a way it is sad that Tony Cohan's book is good, because I think more people will visit San Miguel de Allende and the historic little mountain town will lose its magic. But at the same time the economy of San Miguel de Allende deeply depends on las turistas. I guess it's a Catch 22. Enjoy the book!

41 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best book I have read in years, January 31, 2000

By	dan mouer "Dan" (Richmond, Va.) - See all my reviews

Back in the mid 1980s, about the time Tony Cohan and his wife discovered San Miguel de Allende, my wife and I spent six weeks driving through Mexico, becoming enthralled with this land and it's cultures. Since then we have often thought of uprooting and heading south of the border.

Our trip didn't take us to San Miguel, though we spent lot of time in nearby Guanajuato and Queretero and other cities of the central highlands. It has never been hard for me to summon an imaginary San Miguel. So when I saw this book I snatched it up. The cover art looks like so many of my photographs from Mexico...

...And I was sucked into Tony Cohan's fabulous writing. I finished the book in three evenings, while nonetheless feeling as though I were languishing in the "sabor" of every paragraph. Cohan's book is not an artsy-fartsy travelogue about San Miguel de Allende. It is a wonderful journal of a life he and his wife have undertaken together.

While there is little doubt that the sounds, smells, flavors of classic Mexico richly permeate every page of this book, it is true, too, that the book could have been about a small town in Piedmont Virginia, or the south of France, or anywhere that the frantic and grasping and ultra-"productive" life has not yet conquered all.

This book is truly inspriring, and beautifully written. It is just what I needed to remind me to pay attention to life all around me, to love and sensation and contemplation and cockroaches and scorpions and dying vines...

Thanks, Mr. Cohan, for letting us into your sojourn. Don't worry...I won't run to St.Miguel and accelerate the gentrification. Instead, I'll look around my home and my yard and my neighbohood and be greatful for my own San Miguel...and for your fine book.