|
God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Grant
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $7.00
You Save: $8.00 (53%)
New (34) Used (18) from $7.00
Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 17798
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416534407
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.210484
EAN: 9781416534402
ASIN: 1416534407
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: We ship Daily! Satisfaction Guaranteed!
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| | American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders | | | Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism | | | Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization | | | First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century | | | When You Are Engulfed in Flames |
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops -- the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre -- but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world.Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them -- until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport. With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 Huevos with a shot of adrenaline and transmission smoke April 11, 2008
Dave Lakhani (Boise, ID United States)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
Richard Grant is a cool mix of adventurer, explorer, poet and passionate writer who definately went the extra mile to write this book.
What a revealing look at the Sierra Madre and from a point of view you or I are very unlikely to ever have. I love the way that Grant uses very descriptive Spanish profanity translated to sterile and family friendly English, the juxtaposition of the language with the experience made me laugh out loud more than I have in a long time while reading a book.
The book is written in a way that only someone who set out to capture an adventure could . . . and who nearly lost his life over it. Both retrospective and insightful, the book leads you through a vivid exploration of one of Mexico's most dangerous and beautiful regions.
This is a must read for every person who still has one adventure left in them but has been putting it off and for every person who likes their adventures wrapped in delightful sentences and palpable visuals.
This is one of the best books of its kind that I've read in a long time, it was so good in fact, I bought another of his books immediately because I didn't want this one to end.
 Hmmm.... August 30, 2008
Nina Langford (London)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Although I enjoyed reading this book I am left feeling a little bit annoyed. I have travelled many times into the areas Richard Grant writes about and have had very different experiences.
We have had picnics at the side of streams high in the Sierras, have sat in the square in San Bernardo drinking beer scores of times, drank whisky on the river bank in Chinipas, drove hundreds of miles on dirt roads and camped in a tent. We even went down into Batopilas on our 1969 Lambretta with our dog in a basket on the back and spent the night down there.
Although I don't dispute what he is saying, I think that there is also another aspect to this beautiful area. If you go to seek out the danger in any part of the world you will find it, whether it's a city or wilderness. This area is definitely worth a visit and I would hate anyone to miss out because they have read this book.
Fear and Loathing in the Sierra Madre April 28, 2008
Cecily Crebbs (Tucson, AZ)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book has touches of gonzo but manages to be a profound and relevant look into the heart of darkness that is Mexico. (America has its own H.O. D. but its quite different) I grew up in Venezuela and travelled in both Mexico and Spain for work. While I never had any trouble, my American cousin and her British boyfriend were stripped of everything in less than 24 hours in Mexico City a year after I had been there. This is the book for anyone who has ever been to Mexico and is shocked by the poverty and wonders what the heck is going on. It is also an insightful book for anyone who owns a business and employs people from Mexico. It explores issues that extend beyond the Sierra Madre into the culture as a whole, such as the pervasive machismo, sexism, etc. Richard Grant is a great tour guide in that he is an accurate observer, has the right amount of humor and moral discrimination, and isn't afraid to give an overview to the culture and history and anchor his story in reality, for all the surreal touches. My family has lived in Arizona and had land near the border for over 50 years but in the last few years there has been an unprecedented number of illegals coming over our land, leaving clothes, underwear, water bottles while they wait in the night to get around the checkpoint just up the highway. They've made off with tractors, guns, horses, all kinds of stuff. A book like this does a lot towards answering my questions - like how much money does get sent back to Mexico and what are the number one and number two sources of income in Mexico? Plus its extremely well written. Apparently it has produced some controversy by people who are offended by the portrayal of the Sierra Madre as dangerous. That is kind of crazy because I know native Mexicans who tell me all kinds of stories about people being held up by bandits and how dangerous it is. Its definitely a place where anything can happen. Of course, this is true of life in general. This should be required reading - its quite educational.
the young gringo September 19, 2008
David W. Straight (knoxville, tennessee United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
"The old gringo came to Mexico to die" is how the second chapter of Fuentes' fine novel The Old Gringo begins. That novel (made into a movie) is about Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared in Mexico during the revolution. In that novel Bierce says that being shot in front of a Mexican stone wall is much preferable to falling down the cellar stairs or dying in a hospital. You get the feeling with God's Middle Finger that Grant must have a similar deathwish: Grant pushes fate to the limit and, still alive by some strange quirk of chance, comes back and gives fate an even stronger jab. It this were live TV rather than a book Grant wrote you might be yelling "Go back!" at the TV or covering your eyes. This is a harrowing book, with an appallingly close sense of imminent death.
The book begins with Grant being hunted by half-drunken drug gang members: one of them told him that killing Grant would "please his trigger finger", and Grant is on their home turf--they know the area and he does not. They are having fun--sport--and Grant at this point is terrified. The episode resumes in the last chapter, and in between you see how Grant got into that predicament. This area of Mexico is bad, very bad indeed, but you find that there's really bad and really really bad, and then worse yet. There is no effective difference between the drug gangs and what passes for law enforcement. In one town the police chief and some of his men make Grant join them in snorting lines of cocaine, and as touchy as the situation becomes, it's a walk in the park compared to much of what Grant encounters. But Grant keeps returning, pushing deeper into the worst parts of the area, pushing the envelope.
Most of us, with exceptions such as Sebastian Junger who is quoted on the cover of the book "you can't decide whether to keep reading or go to Mexico to see for yourself", would happily stay a long way away. If we did feel brave and foolhardy enough to go near the fringes, the first time we had stone killers point their AK-47s at us, we'd leave in a great fornication of a hurry (as the book might phrase it) never to return. This is a wonderfully-written book, hair-raising to a degree that would put any Stephen King novels to shame, one that you won't forget.
Buy This Book !!! March 21, 2008
Robin Fugett (Tucson, AZ)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is the book to buy if you want to be throughly entertained. The Sierra Madre as told straight from the Horse's Mouth. An incredible journey down the Devel's Backbone. You will have a hard time putting this book down. Buy This Book !!!
|
|
|
|
| |
