Campbell’s peripatetic prose a garden of pleasure
By Nancy Bohné, June 15, 2007

Why do writers write? For pleasure? To find oneself? Escape oneself? Out of compulsion? For money? H.L. Mencken said one might as well ask why a hen lays an egg.

Ewing Campbell, author of Afoot in the Garden of Enchantments, writes because he’s confused, about two things really—“myself and the world.” And in his confusion he has given us a body of work, a collection of short stories to revel and rejoice in.

Campbell grew up in Corpus Christi in the 1950s. Perhaps it was this proximity to a land so exotic, so foreign, that sparked his curiosity and confirmed an awareness that things aren’t always what they seem. Perhaps it was in those early border crossings, the steady hum of border radio, the heat, the dust; the profound difference between this side of the river and the other, between chiles and white bread. Perhaps he simply had no talent for certainty, but a prodigious desire to search.

He’s been coming to Mexico most of his life. It wasn’t hard to drive the 150 miles to Nuevo Laredo and cross that border to “celebrate George Washington’s birthday in proper fashion.” He’d been doing it since junior high, but those days quickly pass and at 18 it was college or the army.

He chose the army as the less intimidating of the two, landing in Okinawa in 1960. There were night drops into the Philippines, army football in Korea: “It was an opportunity to see some of the world, but one afternoon I was sitting in the barracks and I could suddenly see what my future would be in the service.”

So he traveled, looking for answers, and finding more questions. College began to look like a good idea and in choosing the wrong path—business—he found the right one—writing. 

“I registered for a creative writing class just to see if I could learn how, and I did. Beware of those who say that some things cannot be learned, that they’re gifts—that is nothing more than false modesty.”

Campbell has taught creative writing to many people in many places, from Argentina to Tenerife. He himself is a novelist and short story writer, author of, among others, Weave it Like Nightfall and Piranesi’s Dream: Stories.

“I write to try to understand. I don’t worry about Truth, if I find an explanation that seems plausible it gives me comfort.” 

He is like the characters that people his stories, all in search of what will make them whole, a search that unfolds in marvelous and implausible ways. The characters are full of human folly, the stories rich with gentle irony, and all a pure pleasure to read.

His just released collection of short stories, Afoot in the Garden of Enchantments, bears this out. They were written over a space of 20 years but all the stories have their roots in the Spanish-speaking world.

The setting for “Tauromaquia,” a story about midget bullfighting, is set right here in San Miguel. “My first visit was in 1969. I got off the train and it was really late at night. Canal Street was just a dirt road back then and it was so dark. I could see some lights off in the distance so I started walking and found my way to the San Francisco hotel. I knocked for awhile and finally a really sleepy night clerk let me in.” And he’s been living here on and off ever since.

Campbell, whose writing has been compared to Joyce, Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, is the winner of numerous prizes for his fiction, including the American Literary Review prize for “Tauromaquia.” He has received NEA and Dobie Paisano fellowships and has lectured in Argentina and Spain as a Fulbright fellow. 
So when life gets too noisy, or seems a bit stale, you would do well to seek Campbell out and see what is Afoot in the Garden of Enchantments.

Ewing Campbell Rager Media ISBN: 0-9792091-3-7

The other History of Mexico: Juárez and Maximilian; The Rock and the Dream
By Jesús Ibarra

Armando Fuentes Aguirre “Catón” is one of Mexico’s most read columnists. “De política y cosas peores” (Of politics and worse) and “Mirador” appear in Mexican dailies such as Reforma. Both amazing and profound, his writings make us laugh, think about life and the political panorama in Mexico.

Now, as author and historian, Catón presents us with another version of Mexican history, the version one will never read in the textbooks; the losers’ version. We’re spoon-fed stories of Benito Juárez and he is always portrayed as the perfect hero. The humble Zapotec indian from Oaxaca who studied, became a lawyer and then President of Mexico; one of the architects of mexican independence. On the other hand, in those same textbooks, Emperor Maximilian and his followers, generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía, are considered traitors.

Catrón presents us with the other side of the story. An ambitious Juárez, as thirsty for power as any politician, as opposed to the idealistic dreamer Maximilian, who loved Mexico, his adopted country, and died for it, the brave Miramón, who defended his political ideas, which were as valid as Juárez’s.

With both humor and sarcasm Caton tells a tragic and impressive tale. It is a thrill to read and a joy to ponder.

Armando Fuentes Aguirre “Catón”, Editorial Diana, ISBN: 9681342666