Mexico’s drug trade dissected in San Miguel author’s all-action novel
Reviewed by Alex Gesheva, The Guadalajara Reporter

The following review was originally published in the November 24–30 edition of The Guadalajara Reporter and was reprinted with the author’s permission.

What does the drug trade take from ordinary men and women and how does it shape their lives? These questions might make for a devilishly successful graduate thesis. In this case, they also make for riveting fiction.

The Line is San Miguel author Beldon Butterfield’s exploration of the murky world of narcotráfico in Mexico and at the border with the US (hence the title, for those wondering). George Redfield, an award-winning journalist, receives a manuscript and notes prepared by DEA agent Fernanda Deering and her sometime-lover Jaime Nuñez. The story-within-a-story traces the fateful encounters and experiences that bring Jaime and Fernanda together, their subsequent meeting with General Humberto Cardona Hill, Mexico’s drug czar, and their spiral into chaos and danger. The violent, dehumanizing war on drugs will test the relationships and humanity of each.

This book is built on meticulous research. The drug trade is a tangible character, often one that becomes more real than its heroes and villains. Mexican history and politics buffs, especially those versed in some insider details about law enforcement, will find a detailed and easily recognizable silhouette of real events softened by the comfortable shading of fiction. This exact story, with these precise characters and names, may not be true. But it could be and almost is. Butterfield, who lived in Guadalajara for many years, has done his homework.

The author has chosen an unusual format—a readable and complex romantic triangle written in the style of men’s action novels or thrillers, with a level of journalistic detail often expected of the true-crime genre. This mix alone merits a closer look. Coupled with the relatively rare experience of a strong, believable female lead created by a male author, it makes for unique reading.

Butterfield’s style is spare, showing emotion through actions and instinctive responses, not lengthy introspective passages. This adds to the realistic feel of The Line and makes for a refreshing lack of tormented melodrama.

In this case, that’s a good thing; this plotline has plenty of drama of its own. Background details and characters, rural village settings near San Miguel, a machete-wielding assassin, known Guadalajara locales, drug kingpins, traitors, double agents and East Coast yuppies fit together to form an elegant and intricate whole. It may not seem so at first encounter, but every character has a very necessary and poetic purpose in this story. It’s unrealistic to hope for a happy ending from any fiction discussing the futility of the war on drugs, but The Line provides readers with a satisfying conclusion without shying away from reality. The loose ends come together with an almost audible snap.

It’s trendy these days (perhaps it always was) to pad writing liberally with foreign words. Fortunately, Butterfield has spared us the indignity of staggering through a bilingual morass—he has italicized and fully translated conversations held in Spanish and sprinkled only a few well-chosen Spanish terms for color. It’s a kind and well-reasoned choice that most readers will welcome.

The only flaw in this novel, the odd role of George Redfield, seems inevitable. Redfield’s positioning at the periphery of the strongest plotline is both plausible and necessary, but it tends to make seem pale and a bit one-dimensional in comparison to the dynamic, edgy and complex characterization and relationship between Jaime and Fernanda. This is simply not Redfield’s story, despite the fact that he is cast in a romantic lead role.

The Line is richly detailed and does not glorify violence or the drug trade. Neither does it flinch away from its brutal realities. It is earthy, concise and clearly draws on a broad knowledge base from insiders and law enforcement agents. Whether or not the reader is drawn to capturing the feel of 1980s Guadalajara, the daily business of the drug cartels and the minor life-and-death roles law enforcement officials play in the war on drugs, it’s a gem of a story.

The Line (La Línea) is available at www.beldonbutterfield.com, Sandi’s Bookstore in Guadalajara and El Tecolote in San Miguel (444 pages, Ediciones de la Noche, 2007).

Armchair travel through the past
By Lulu Torbet

Authors’ Sala Barbara Levine, Aran Shetterly Lulu Torbet & Leah Feldon Fri, Dec 7, 5–7pm Posada de San Francisco Plaza Principal 2  Corner Hidalgo & San Francisco 50 pesos

December’s Authors’ Sala continues our successful momentum by bringing you a dynamic array of fine local authors to whet your literary appetites. Join us for an evening of travel, history, and fun playing on words.

If you missed Barbara Levine’s presentation about her new book, Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums at the filled-to-capacity Librería La Deriva bookstore recently, you are in luck for she will give an encore reading and book signing for the Authors’ Sala on December 7.

Around the World is a sumptuous and evocative book, every page brimming with visual and photographic treasures. This painstakingly assembled collection gathers excerpts from the personal journals and photo albums of turn-of-the-century, middle-class American travelers to Europe, East Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. These tourists created their albums during an era when photographic visual information from foreign cultures was precious because it was rare. Many photos are intriguing as historical documents—they capture the experience of travelers who lived a century ago, and, in a few cases, they vividly illustrate daily life in exotic locales—Siam, Cambodia and Trinidad.

The book itself is put together like a photo album. Each of the ten albums featured, shown in multiple pages and layouts, is one person’s story; together they loosely cover an around-the-world excursion. Each album reveals in its presentation the diverse style, character and point of view of its maker.

Interspersed between the albums is a “Gazette,” which highlights a feature of travel in the era covered (roughly 1890–1930: lodging, money, auto touring, “going native,” etc. All the albums featured in Around the World are from Levine’s personal collection. An avid collector of vintage photography and ephemera, she ironically does not like to travel. She is the quintessential armchair traveler. To her these albums are immersive and experiential, time capsules of a profoundly changed world.

“Anonymous vintage travel albums allow me to share the experience of early travelers from a distance of many decades,” she says. “I am struck by the collective experience of travel and memory….For me, the experience of opening the cover and turning the pages of personal photographic travel stories never fades. I appreciate these albums as memory objects.”

Today we look at photographs on screens—increasingly smaller screens. The ritual of paging through a tactile album that you can hold in your hands is nearly obsolete. The new technologies are amazing—just as they were 100 years ago. The difference today is that much of what we see remains inside the camera or on the hard drive which raises very interesting questions about memory and legacy for future generations.

Levine, before coming to San Miguel, had a long career as a curator and museum executive—she has been director of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and deputy director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. She now runs project b, an international curatorial and exhibition services company. In addition, her content-rich website, www.projectb.com, is an artistic and intellectual destination—a place to read about her background, experience an interesting world of objects, artifacts and ideas and see online exhibitions. In 2006, her first book, Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album about the under-recognized creativity found in early photo albums, was published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Avid travelers, armchair enthusiasts, photographers, as well as those interested in history or enjoy placing their own photo albums in historical context, will be charmed by Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Album.

About the Authors’ Sala

The mission of the San Miguel Authors’ Sala is to provide visibility, community and education for writers and readers in both English and Spanish. The Authors’ Sala presents works by writers of novels, poetry, memoirs, short stories and nonfiction, as well as agents and editors. Additionally, it presents readings and workshops for writers and aspiring writers. Look for books by local authors in a special section in La Tienda in the Biblioteca. For information on upcoming events, visit www.authorssalasanmiguel.com 

Events are usually 5–7pm in the Posada de San Francisco, Plaza Principal 2, corner of Hidalgo, across from the Jardín.

Photographer and painter Lulu Torbet had a graphic design studio in Manhattan before being lured into the writing game. She is the author or ghostwriter of over 30 books, most of them in crafts, psychology and memoir.