Richard Grant (2) (1963–)

To paraphrase one part of the story: the Sierra Madre / Sonora / Chihuahua / Durango / Sinaloa / Mexico is the refuse dump of all of New Spain.

This book started off really good, but then it quickly settled in to essentially the same oft repeated theme every paragraph to every sentence. My interest became dulled to the point of really having to work to finish it.

The writing was good, and occasionally appealing. Like this part below:

"Témoris was a grubby, placid, little town with chickens scratching in the front yards, coffee-can flower gardens, and dogs sleeping under rusty old pickup trucks, saving their energy for all the barking they would have to do at night."

But I got tired of the repetitive narrative: norteño and narcocorrido music, AK-47s and guns in general, never-ending violence, rape and femicide, machismo and all its downsides, scorpions, crippling poverty and apathy, environmental destruction, cartels, mafiosos, narco everything (marijuana, cocaine, opium), pickups, cowboy boots made out of one endangered species or another, hats (cowboy / trucker) adorned with AK-47s or scorpions or pot leaves, and murder and vendettas feeding a forever series of murder and vendettas.

If that's your thing then this is a great book.

Towards the end of the book, page 241 to be exact, the author had this to say:

"We drank four or five gourds each and got nicely buzzed there on the rim of Sinforosa Canyon and it occurred to me that this was more or less the moment I had been looking for when I set out on his journey. Here I was in the heart of the Sierra Madre, about as far from consumer capitalism and the comfortably familiar as I could get, drinking tesguino with a wizened old Tarahumara and feeling that edgy, excited pleasure in being alive that follows a bad scare. It was an uncomfortable realization. To put it another way, here I was getting my kicks and curing my ennui in a place full of poverty and suffering, environmental and cultural destruction, widows and orphans from a slow-motion massacre. I tried to persuade myself that I was going to write something that would make a difference and help these people, but my capacity for self-delusion refused to stretch in that direction."

When I read that, I felt that it summarized the entire book which I'd gotten in the first 40-50 pages, but had taken the author weeks and months and 241 pages. God's Middle Finger is a fairly incredible story, but wasn't quite so fulfilling as a book.… (mere)

I did not like this book, it really should have been 2-4 different books.
(Is this really a Richard Grant book? I loved God’s Middle Finger, Crazy River, and Dispatches from Pluto. This book is just a mess.
Where is the humor you used to seem to have)? At the very least this should have been two totally desperate books:
One book about slavery
and one book about the people of Natchez and all their craziness.
These two subjects should never have been combined into one book. Also there is no real beginning or ending in this book.

If you want to write a book about slavery go for it. Write about what a horrendous despicable practice it was, how awful the people were treated. How a specific region of this country benefited by it and a select group of white people got obscenely wealthy because of it.
It was nice that the author included the fact that African slaves were often captured and sold by other Africans who were from a different tribe and saw nothing wrong with the practice, but the author continues to grind away at the guilt everyone must feel regarding what happened. I would remind the author no one wants to be lectured to, especially by a man from Britain. If you Mr Grant somehow are under the misguided notion that your country was any different than America, I suggest you spend some time in the Caribbean, specifically Barbados and Jamaica. We won’t even touch your country’s handling of South Africa and it’s legacy or India!
There is one fascinating story about a slave who is actually an African prince and what happens to him.
This alone would have been a great book!

As for the rest of the book- pretty much every other chapter-is nothing but gossip and hearsay about the crazy white people of Natchez, the rival lady’s garden clubs, the one upping of others, and their ridiculous pageants, behavior, and complete insensitivity to what their ancestors did and how they behaved.
There is no doubt that racism exists, there is no doubt it is ignored, there is no doubt some members of the white Natchez community are living in complete denial, or are insane. But this book only covers an overview of the topic.
As if all this wasn’t enough to cover,
The author then tackles the the problem of schools and education in general in Mississippi and in Natchez in particular. For the record the problems are nearly insurmountable, nepotism seems to be far more important than providing an education. This also could have been its own book.
Then for some strange reason the author interviews Greg Iles a mystery author who lives just outside Natchez, who is typical of liberals in that he believes much more needs to be done for the black community, the people, their schools etc. and more money needs to be spent but voted against raising property taxes to spend more on the schools and was pulled from the public school while growing up and sent to a private school because the public school was so bad, and won’t send his kids to the public schools and lives in a gated house on 70 acres of land.
This type of book is not where solutions will be found and it is far to short to accurately detail all the problems and ironies of life in Natchez.… (mere)

This was an awakening book - for me, a white (in an area of very predominately white) Wisconsinite, anyway. Let's put it this way, if you saw any male person of color in the 70's, it was a Green Bay Packer. Seriously. However, I must say, we were all brought up to respect. Plain and simple. I obviously empathize and have respect for all races. Like so many of us do.

But to be faced with a picture of the present South AND the past South together It's damn near interchangeable. What a damn shame. It certainly clarifies the political crap going on these past 6 years!

I would highly recommend. Especially if you grew up sheltered from the hatred. You'll root for the Prince and be disgusted by the idea of a garden club.

Discussion and respect needs to happen.… (mere)