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Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez
This striking work of graphic journalism pairs previously unpublished creative nonfiction by Charles Bowden with provocative scratchboard drawings by Alice Leora Briggs to create a vignette of daily life in Juárez, Mexico, in all its surreal brutality and beauty.
Winner, Southwest Book Award, Border Regional Library Association, 2011 What do you call a place where people are tortured and murdered and buried in the backyard of a nice, middle-class condo? Where police work for the drug cartels? Where the meanings of words such as "border" and "crime" and "justice" are emptying out into the streets and flowing down into the sewers? You call it Juárez or, better yet, Dreamland. Realizing that merely reporting the facts cannot capture the massive disintegration of society that is happening along the border, Charles Bowden and Alice Leora Briggs use nonfiction and sgraffito drawings to depict the surreality that is Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Starting from an incident in which a Mexican informant for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security murdered a man while U.S. agents listened in by cell phone—and did nothing to intervene—Bowden forcefully and poetically describes the breakdown of all order in Juárez as the power of the drug industry outstrips the power of the state. Alice Leora Briggs's drawings—reminiscent of Northern Renaissance engraving and profoundly disquieting—intensify the reality of this place where atrocities happen daily and no one, neither citizens nor governments, openly acknowledges them. With the feel of a graphic novel, the look of an illuminated medieval manuscript, and the harshness of a police blotter, Dreamland captures the routine brutality, resilient courage, and rapacious daily commerce along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Winner, Southwest Book Award, Border Regional Library Association, 2011 What do you call a place where people are tortured and murdered and buried in the backyard of a nice, middle-class condo? Where police work for the drug cartels? Where the meanings of words such as "border" and "crime" and "justice" are emptying out into the streets and flowing down into the sewers? You call it Juárez or, better yet, Dreamland. Realizing that merely reporting the facts cannot capture the massive disintegration of society that is happening along the border, Charles Bowden and Alice Leora Briggs use nonfiction and sgraffito drawings to depict the surreality that is Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Starting from an incident in which a Mexican informant for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security murdered a man while U.S. agents listened in by cell phone—and did nothing to intervene—Bowden forcefully and poetically describes the breakdown of all order in Juárez as the power of the drug industry outstrips the power of the state. Alice Leora Briggs's drawings—reminiscent of Northern Renaissance engraving and profoundly disquieting—intensify the reality of this place where atrocities happen daily and no one, neither citizens nor governments, openly acknowledges them. With the feel of a graphic novel, the look of an illuminated medieval manuscript, and the harshness of a police blotter, Dreamland captures the routine brutality, resilient courage, and rapacious daily commerce along the U.S.-Mexico border.
174 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2010
2 people are currently reading
353 people want to read
About the author
Charles Bowden
67 books185 followersCharles Bowden was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
His journalism appeared regularly in Harper’s GQ, and other national publications. He was the author of several books of nonfiction, including Down by the River.
In more than a dozen groundbreaking books and many articles, Charles Bowden blazed a trail of fire from the deserts of the Southwest to the centers of power where abstract ideas of human nature hold sway — and to the roiling places that give such ideas the lie. He claimed as his turf "our soul history, the germinal material, vast and brooding, that is always left out of more orthodox (all of them) books about America" (Jim Harrison, on Blood Orchid ).
His journalism appeared regularly in Harper’s GQ, and other national publications. He was the author of several books of nonfiction, including Down by the River.
In more than a dozen groundbreaking books and many articles, Charles Bowden blazed a trail of fire from the deserts of the Southwest to the centers of power where abstract ideas of human nature hold sway — and to the roiling places that give such ideas the lie. He claimed as his turf "our soul history, the germinal material, vast and brooding, that is always left out of more orthodox (all of them) books about America" (Jim Harrison, on Blood Orchid ).
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 27, 2011
Charles Bowden is one of my heroes in the field of telling-it-like-it-is. This book is about the situation on the u.s./mexico border and the drug war, like most of his last 10 or so books. Dreamland focuses mainly on a certain situation that happened in Ciudad Juarez in 2004-2005 known as the House of Death, a situation I was aware of while making my documentary about Juarez, although some of the minute detail was stuff I'd glossed over or blocked from memory.
Still, the basic facts related are somewhat old news for me, and so I can see how this book would have a much more intense, mind-blowing impact for someone who has not already studied the extremes of Juarez. At any rate the book is filled with Bowden's now trademark poetic prose, lyrical meditations on a systemic situation that seems to be impossible to even imagine a real solution to, and hence the title of the book, because a sort of state of dreaming is the only reaction that allows for some semblance of sanity or normal life, once one is exposed to the horrors involved.
Bowden has covered much of this blood-soaked ground before. But this time he collaborates with the artist Alice Leora Briggs to bring a unique format to the work, perhaps as a way to somehow get through to people in a new way, since the standard journalistic reportage has not worked. Briggs' illustrations bring a sort of macabre comic-book style to the volume, closely mirroring the text page-by-page, but not with strictly realist depictions - they are mixtures of iconic symbols repeated in patterns, along with allegorical pictures that seem to combine a sort of medieval, Canterbury Tales style with a gritty, courtroom sketch kind of aesthetic. Rows and columns of bullets, skulls, flowers, hands, and beer cans cavort across the page with skeletons and priests and gun-toting federales. It's a very fitting accompaniment to Bowden's words.
It's difficult for me to judge this book, again because I'm already so familiar with what it tells of. But the odd format as well as its artiness and its grim subject matter makes me wonder what the intended or expected audience could possibly be. Juarez completists like myself? Die-hard Bowden fans? Art junkies and comic-book goths? It's hard to say. But I'd recommend this to anyone who might appreciate a different look at the surreal but violent reality of the mexican narco war.
Still, the basic facts related are somewhat old news for me, and so I can see how this book would have a much more intense, mind-blowing impact for someone who has not already studied the extremes of Juarez. At any rate the book is filled with Bowden's now trademark poetic prose, lyrical meditations on a systemic situation that seems to be impossible to even imagine a real solution to, and hence the title of the book, because a sort of state of dreaming is the only reaction that allows for some semblance of sanity or normal life, once one is exposed to the horrors involved.
Bowden has covered much of this blood-soaked ground before. But this time he collaborates with the artist Alice Leora Briggs to bring a unique format to the work, perhaps as a way to somehow get through to people in a new way, since the standard journalistic reportage has not worked. Briggs' illustrations bring a sort of macabre comic-book style to the volume, closely mirroring the text page-by-page, but not with strictly realist depictions - they are mixtures of iconic symbols repeated in patterns, along with allegorical pictures that seem to combine a sort of medieval, Canterbury Tales style with a gritty, courtroom sketch kind of aesthetic. Rows and columns of bullets, skulls, flowers, hands, and beer cans cavort across the page with skeletons and priests and gun-toting federales. It's a very fitting accompaniment to Bowden's words.
It's difficult for me to judge this book, again because I'm already so familiar with what it tells of. But the odd format as well as its artiness and its grim subject matter makes me wonder what the intended or expected audience could possibly be. Juarez completists like myself? Die-hard Bowden fans? Art junkies and comic-book goths? It's hard to say. But I'd recommend this to anyone who might appreciate a different look at the surreal but violent reality of the mexican narco war.
November 19, 2013
I read this book for a class, and it just wasn't my thing. I found the voice extremely hard to connect to until after I listened to a NPR interview with the author (Bowden) and got a sense of his personality and manner of speaking. This book is designed to convey a sense or mood to the reader more so than a narrative or historical account of the drug cartel problems in Juarez, so it was a stylistic choice to use such an... ungrounded (for lack of a better word) voice, but that just didn't connect with me.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Juarez, so the lack of background information left me confused and scrambling to keep up.
The illustrations were impressive in terms of detail and technique, and did in most cases "illuminate" the text. However, sometimes I found them confusing or unclear, which was distracting.
Then again, someone else could make all of the same observations and love the book, it missed its target on me.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Juarez, so the lack of background information left me confused and scrambling to keep up.
The illustrations were impressive in terms of detail and technique, and did in most cases "illuminate" the text. However, sometimes I found them confusing or unclear, which was distracting.
Then again, someone else could make all of the same observations and love the book, it missed its target on me.
May 21, 2017
I liked the drawings but then some of the European imagery seemed out of place and confusing with the subject matter. Bowden's story telling was hard to follow and sometimes felt exploitive. Still as a person who studies the Border and a true crime fan I was fascinated by this work in a conflicted way. Also, his concept of Dreamland seemed very random to me. I would have liked to have heard directly from the residents of Dreamland about what they think of their self-delusion.
December 27, 2020
I started out hating this book and not knowing if I'd be able to finish it. The run-on sentences, jumps in subject matter and timeline, switches between real and metaphorical--it's kind of a confusing mess. Eventually I either got into the rhythm the author was in/going for or it just got better/more interesting because I found myself folding pages and enjoying lines. The art is very interesting but there needs to be A LOT of interpretation to make it fit with the narrative and most of the time it just felt too disjointed for me.
Passages I did like:
"If you wish to do business you will pay a bribe. If you wish to feel safe, you will not call the police. If you prosper, you will move into a gated community. If you prosper even more, you will have a bodyguard and bulletproof vehicle. If you prosper even more, you will, of course, leave the country. The publisher of the local newspaper lives across the river in another country for reasons of safety. This is accepted as part of the natural order"
"You will almost certainly be employed since by official rules anyone working one hour a week is employed according to the authorities. Unless you are very unusual, you employment will never pay you enough to live on and so you will live with others and pool your money and barely squeak by."
"Small improvements could be made in this system. Decent wages paid by American companies in Juarez would lessen the violence and slow or end illegal immigration in that area, but this is impossible because the companies must compete with businesses in Asia. Legalizing drugs would destroy the cartel and end the cash flow into their hands of tens of billions of dollars a year, but this is impossible because American citizens would consume drugs without guilt. Opening government files would prevent future cooperation with killers, but this is impossible because of the need for national security.
And giving national documents to me is well-night impossible, because this would jeopardize careers and pensions and family dreams.
Everything is impossible except the status quo."
"What commentators and politicians call problems are no more than how these facts manifest themselves. There is no drug problem, there is a drug appetite. There is no immigration problem, there is a flight from poverty and a demand for cheap and docile labor. There is no violence problem, there is simply an economic engine running without lubricant and without much hope of lubricant unless you count blood as a possible source, something our ancestors would simply see as a typical unregulated market. And the Mexican war is actual it is fought by Americans against Mexicans because such a war is preferable to Americans. The only alternative is to recognize the implications of our appetites and policies and no one wishes to do this. On this border it does not matter is his president or which party is in power. On this border the facts remain the same, and the death houses remain open for 'carne asadas'."
"That is the solution to the problem because there is no problem, there is only a market. And nothing will alter this market this year or next year or for decades to come. We have learned to live with the problem by lying about the problem. There are worse fates, I'm sure, but they must be terrible fates indeed."
Passages I did like:
"If you wish to do business you will pay a bribe. If you wish to feel safe, you will not call the police. If you prosper, you will move into a gated community. If you prosper even more, you will have a bodyguard and bulletproof vehicle. If you prosper even more, you will, of course, leave the country. The publisher of the local newspaper lives across the river in another country for reasons of safety. This is accepted as part of the natural order"
"You will almost certainly be employed since by official rules anyone working one hour a week is employed according to the authorities. Unless you are very unusual, you employment will never pay you enough to live on and so you will live with others and pool your money and barely squeak by."
"Small improvements could be made in this system. Decent wages paid by American companies in Juarez would lessen the violence and slow or end illegal immigration in that area, but this is impossible because the companies must compete with businesses in Asia. Legalizing drugs would destroy the cartel and end the cash flow into their hands of tens of billions of dollars a year, but this is impossible because American citizens would consume drugs without guilt. Opening government files would prevent future cooperation with killers, but this is impossible because of the need for national security.
And giving national documents to me is well-night impossible, because this would jeopardize careers and pensions and family dreams.
Everything is impossible except the status quo."
"What commentators and politicians call problems are no more than how these facts manifest themselves. There is no drug problem, there is a drug appetite. There is no immigration problem, there is a flight from poverty and a demand for cheap and docile labor. There is no violence problem, there is simply an economic engine running without lubricant and without much hope of lubricant unless you count blood as a possible source, something our ancestors would simply see as a typical unregulated market. And the Mexican war is actual it is fought by Americans against Mexicans because such a war is preferable to Americans. The only alternative is to recognize the implications of our appetites and policies and no one wishes to do this. On this border it does not matter is his president or which party is in power. On this border the facts remain the same, and the death houses remain open for 'carne asadas'."
"That is the solution to the problem because there is no problem, there is only a market. And nothing will alter this market this year or next year or for decades to come. We have learned to live with the problem by lying about the problem. There are worse fates, I'm sure, but they must be terrible fates indeed."
July 18, 2017
As I read the book I was taking pictures of favorite quotes and saving them in my notes, but soon I had to stop because it was every damn page. I love how the author and the artist threaded together multiple story lines, differentiating the plots by the fonts, art, and even rhythm of the words.
This was an inspiring example of how to bite into a hugely complex system and resist the urge to offer part-solutions. And in fact to show the futility of trying to take and treat any one chunk outside of the context of the whole.
This was an inspiring example of how to bite into a hugely complex system and resist the urge to offer part-solutions. And in fact to show the futility of trying to take and treat any one chunk outside of the context of the whole.
“Small improvements could be made in this system. Decent wages paid by American companies in Juarez would lessen the violence and slow or end illegal immigration in that area, but this is impossible because the companies must compete with business in Asia. Legalizing drugs would destroy the cartel and end the cash flow into their hands of tens of billions of dollars a year, but this is impossible because American citizens would consume drugs without guilt. Opening government files would prevent future cooperation with killers, but this is impossible because of the need for national security.
And giving security documents to me is well nigh impossible, because this would jeopardize careers and pensions and family dreams.
Everything is impossible except the status quo.”
“Here is how it works: first some incident, say twelve men buried carefully in the backyard of a condo in a decent neighborhood, catches one’s attention. Then one investigates and sees the incident as part of a larger problem. Then one sees the problem as really an issue. Then one sees the issue as really a question that demands a new policy. Then, one feels comfort. Problem/issue/policy/defined and question answered. This is the death of the mind that slaughters the intellect of the educated on the line. Sometimes this death comes before anything but little fragments have been examined and the mind dies wrapped around the notion of, say, the drug war. Or of illegal immigration. Or of trade as embodied in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Cures are suggested: just say no, hire more narcs, an open border, guest worker permits, vigils against violence, poetry readings, plays, magazine stories such as I have written, heralding new horrors to savor.
I’ve moved into some place beyond that. I am here to announce the obvious, the war. It rages all along the line, it kills thousands, it slaughters beneath notice and it will spill gore on my ground when my bones rest in the brown earth I love. Thirty or forty years from now, the American adventures into the bowels of the Middle East will be forgotten details of bumbling imperialism. But what took place in this patio, what is taking place all along the line will profoundly alter the future of the United States. The future is here, even though I can’t even catch a trace of the rotting bodies with their gaping, toothy mouths.”
February 20, 2021
Utterly mesmerizing.
The interplay of text and illustration launches the "messages" in your face.
It's a book about corruption, in Mexico and the United States, over many years as poverty, drugs, collusion and deep corruption on both sides of the border cement the fate of thousands of people, many of whom seek a "better" life in the United States.
Mexican authorities and criminals want to make money and feed the drug dragon. American authorities operate with virtual impunity as decades of corruption and four years of Trump show.
I had to read and think slowly with this book. There's so much to absorb and understand.
It's the Death House writ large, the metaphor gone universal.
The interplay of text and illustration launches the "messages" in your face.
It's a book about corruption, in Mexico and the United States, over many years as poverty, drugs, collusion and deep corruption on both sides of the border cement the fate of thousands of people, many of whom seek a "better" life in the United States.
Mexican authorities and criminals want to make money and feed the drug dragon. American authorities operate with virtual impunity as decades of corruption and four years of Trump show.
I had to read and think slowly with this book. There's so much to absorb and understand.
It's the Death House writ large, the metaphor gone universal.
February 21, 2019
"They come north into this inferno to smuggle drugs because U.S. citizens wish to consume drugs. They come north into this inferno seeking jobs because U.S. citizens need people for jobs that pay low wages. That is the cause, in good part, of this Mexican war. They come north because we beckon but we do not like to admit this fact nor do we like the people who come north."
A stunning and unsettling graphic novel (essay?) about the U.S.-Mexico border and the crime and corruption that is enabled by both governments.
A stunning and unsettling graphic novel (essay?) about the U.S.-Mexico border and the crime and corruption that is enabled by both governments.
December 8, 2019
This book is not for the squeamish. The excellent pen-and-ink artwork is disturbing and unsettling. The descriptions of life on the border of Texas and Mexico are horrifying. The revelation that the police on both sides are helping the drug trafficers is shocking and sad. There are a few great passages, but the reading is generally hard because of the writing style.....a whole page can be one rambling sentence.
November 28, 2012
This is not a book about drug cartels. This is a book about Juarez. If you want to know how the Zetas came to rule the border, how government officials from local police to the Mexican president became tangled in a violent industry, how many innocent citizens and politicians have been kidnapped or murdered, you can read the (scarce) news reports of kidnappings and murders and watch documentaries. But Dreamland is not the book you read to collect terrifying facts about the drug war and the people who run it.
Dreamland centers around the death house in Juarez, where dozens of individuals were murdered, covered in lime for quick decay, and buried. One of the men who worked out of the death house, Lalo, was a government liaison for a cigarette smuggling case. The United States learned about the death house before it was filled with bodies and did nothing.
But Dreamland tells a bigger story than the death house. Bowden attempts to interrogate the political and economic factors that led to a society where the most powerful rulers are the ones with the biggest guns and the most money. In a sense, Dreamland is just as much about Mexican poverty as it is about Chinese poverty; as much about Mexican corruption as it is about American corruption. For Bowden, "the Mexican war is simply part of a global breakdown, the shredding of traditional cultures by the machinery of trade, by overpopulation, by the destruction of natural resources by teeming human numbers. It does not matter if it is a man slipping through the wire with a baby in my desert, or a teenager leaving a village in Eastern Europe for the whorehouses of the West. It is all part of that big picture that wonks tend to in the temples of think tanks. But this one facet, the Mexican war, was happening on my watch, on my ground."
Dreamland centers around the death house in Juarez, where dozens of individuals were murdered, covered in lime for quick decay, and buried. One of the men who worked out of the death house, Lalo, was a government liaison for a cigarette smuggling case. The United States learned about the death house before it was filled with bodies and did nothing.
But Dreamland tells a bigger story than the death house. Bowden attempts to interrogate the political and economic factors that led to a society where the most powerful rulers are the ones with the biggest guns and the most money. In a sense, Dreamland is just as much about Mexican poverty as it is about Chinese poverty; as much about Mexican corruption as it is about American corruption. For Bowden, "the Mexican war is simply part of a global breakdown, the shredding of traditional cultures by the machinery of trade, by overpopulation, by the destruction of natural resources by teeming human numbers. It does not matter if it is a man slipping through the wire with a baby in my desert, or a teenager leaving a village in Eastern Europe for the whorehouses of the West. It is all part of that big picture that wonks tend to in the temples of think tanks. But this one facet, the Mexican war, was happening on my watch, on my ground."
August 9, 2011
Juarez.
The name alone brings to mind images of drug cartels run amok and the vain attempts of the government and Police to stop them.
In his latest book, Charles Bowden steps beyond the headlines by focusing primarily on the single story of a US informant and the death house he helped to oversee in Juarez. Bowden attempts to place this story amongst the larger story of corruption amongst all levels of government in Mexico and to show how the violence surrounding the drug trade in mexico is tied into the same economic conditions that drive illegal immigration into the US.
Knowing that a traditional narrative wouldn't have the power to truly communicate the situation, he partners here with Alice Leora Briggs to produce something closer to an illuminated text. The images add gravity to the story and perhaps are a way past the news story as car wreck attitude that we seem to have towards Juarez in the US so that we can begin to see how all of these stories combine to form one gigantic narrative that has the potential (and already has begun) to spill over into the US.
The name alone brings to mind images of drug cartels run amok and the vain attempts of the government and Police to stop them.
In his latest book, Charles Bowden steps beyond the headlines by focusing primarily on the single story of a US informant and the death house he helped to oversee in Juarez. Bowden attempts to place this story amongst the larger story of corruption amongst all levels of government in Mexico and to show how the violence surrounding the drug trade in mexico is tied into the same economic conditions that drive illegal immigration into the US.
Knowing that a traditional narrative wouldn't have the power to truly communicate the situation, he partners here with Alice Leora Briggs to produce something closer to an illuminated text. The images add gravity to the story and perhaps are a way past the news story as car wreck attitude that we seem to have towards Juarez in the US so that we can begin to see how all of these stories combine to form one gigantic narrative that has the potential (and already has begun) to spill over into the US.
June 27, 2010
The writing gets three stars, the illustrations 5. I figure splitting the difference is fair. I enjoyed "Dreamland" but found myself wondering if it would have actually worked a bit better as a full-on graphic novel. The illustrations add so much to the text and bring emotion to Bowden's elegy for Juarez that the text alone lacks.
This is *not* a book about Juarez or drug cartels. This is a long meditation on humanity (and the lack there of) in the idea of nation states, boundaries, and "wars" in all forms. If you're looking for a fact-based account of the situation in Juarez look elsewhere.
Parts are quite thought provoking; Bowden has a way with long sentences. However, at times his scope wandered too far and the insights felt shallow. The book is at its best when he reflects on interviewing sources or walking through the "death house." It is at its weakest when he loses site of these concrete artifacts to ponder the abstract.
This is *not* a book about Juarez or drug cartels. This is a long meditation on humanity (and the lack there of) in the idea of nation states, boundaries, and "wars" in all forms. If you're looking for a fact-based account of the situation in Juarez look elsewhere.
Parts are quite thought provoking; Bowden has a way with long sentences. However, at times his scope wandered too far and the insights felt shallow. The book is at its best when he reflects on interviewing sources or walking through the "death house." It is at its weakest when he loses site of these concrete artifacts to ponder the abstract.
December 8, 2010
I really wanted to like this book more than I did.
The situation on the US's southern border is dire. It's more than a "problem". I felt the author did a great job conveying the vibe of what it's like living in a border state.
I hated the art. Again, I like the idea, but the execution was not to my taste.
This book was more like a poem.
Don't read this if you are looking for concrete information about Juarez/drug cartels/etc.
Do read this book if you are familiar with the facts, but want to get more personal flavor.
The situation on the US's southern border is dire. It's more than a "problem". I felt the author did a great job conveying the vibe of what it's like living in a border state.
I hated the art. Again, I like the idea, but the execution was not to my taste.
This book was more like a poem.
Don't read this if you are looking for concrete information about Juarez/drug cartels/etc.
Do read this book if you are familiar with the facts, but want to get more personal flavor.
May 25, 2012
I loved it. It was disturbing but poetic and dreamy. I couldn't put it down. Charles Bowden impressed me again. I love how skillfully he combines facts with striking, detailed scenes and moments. Similarly to his book Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields, this one was written in such a way that it made me feel as if I were at the places he was describing.
November 10, 2010
Very intense book about a serious subject with exceptional artowrk. If you are at all curious about the Juarez drug wars (or any border town drug, immigration issues), this is a good way to get introduced.
November 1, 2012
Absolutely mezmerizing, compelling, horrible, and fantastically illustrated -- some of the very best illustrations I have ever seen in a book. Brings the drug war and the Tex/Mex involvement home as never before.
September 22, 2011
Alright, so I only partially read this because I couldn't stomach it anymore. It's graphic novel style - so I liked that - and Charles really knows the border, but rough. Would recommend for someone who wants to read something other than news stories about the border hell...
October 25, 2012
Bowden poetically explores the situation of the drug cartel and government's relationship both in the U.S. and Mexico, specifically focusing on the "Death House" where an ICE/DEA informant was directly involved in the murders of twelve men with the government fully aware of the incident.
June 7, 2016
Extraordinarily disturbing. Unlike anything else I've ever read, closer to a (extreme) graphic novel. It's as bleak as the black and white drawings within, some of which are remarkable in their detail, lending to the narrative.
December 1, 2010
Beautiful illustrations. Great writer. Very horrifying [true] story though.
January 5, 2011
This is an hallucinogenic fever dream of a book. Kudos to UT Press for publishing it.
March 11, 2011
Remarkable on several levels. Although a short work it has great power and the drawings are equally compelling. I cannot recommend it more highly
May 22, 2015
I couldn't get through this book. It was trying to be too poetic but it really wasn't. And there wasn't enough plot. The illustrations were great, though!
May 17, 2011
Read entirely on an ORD->SEA flight.
Interesting in many ways, but didn't have alot of insights that I already have from family members who live in mexico.
Interesting in many ways, but didn't have alot of insights that I already have from family members who live in mexico.
June 23, 2012
Very abstract book. Seemed a little hard to follow for me, mostly because I wasn't expecting the format that he wrote in. Overall, a very interesting read!
October 27, 2012
F ing amazing
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews