God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre by Richard Grant Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre
Book Review: Richard Grant no tiene verguenza!
Summary: 1 Stars
My grandfather always told me that if you go looking for trouble you will find it. Richard Grant went to the Sierra Madre of Sonora and Chihuahua and proved my grandfather right. I have spent over 30 years traveling outside the tourist bubble, doing field research (I am an archaeologist) and living in Sonora and Chihuahua. I have been to about two thirds of the places that Grant discusses in his book and most of them I have visited many times. I have never been threatened, witness to a violent act, intimidated, or chased by drug crazed vaqueros. I have met hundreds of people the vast majority of which have been friendly, hospitable, and helpful. Richard Grant went looking for the stereotyped Mexico of the drug lord and the bandito and he found it or perhaps created it. Bad things happen in the Sierra Madre and in Mexico just as they do in the United States. Most of us live our lives in the United States with very little contact with those bad things. This is true in Mexico also. Mexico has a serious problem with the drug trade and there has been much violence but the vast majority of it has been within the trade. I have met drug lords and their pistoleros - I have always left them alone and they have always left me alone. Grant's book stereotypes, exaggerates and demeans Mexico and Mexicans. I doubt the veracity of most of it and I find the author shameless to have written it. Book Review: Fun Reading, But Questionable Believability
Summary: 3 Stars
I suppose if you go to a place and look for the worst that the particular place has to offer, you will find it. While I am sure that the Sierra Madre are not particular hot spots for fun and excitement, I doubt that the whole place is as bad as the author portrays them to be. Nor, I feel certain, are all of the people who inhabit the area into some sort of lawless behavior.
The writing was satisfactory, but there was something not quite believable about the whole story. It made me think I was reading the written version of a Hollywood "reality" show, which in reality is not reality.
Book Review: My Middle Finger
Summary: 1 Stars
I am an American Citizen and I have lived in Alamos Sonora for 15 years. My wife and I have raised our two daughters here and we have a couple of business that take us into the sierra Madre with tourists on a regular basis. Alamos is one of the places that Richard Grant writes about in his book God's Middle Finger, however after reading the book I feel like Richard must have been writing about a different Alamos!
It would be nice if someone could write a reasonable and accurate account of life in the Sierra Madre, certainly "God's Middle Finger" is NOT IT! Unfortunately Richard Grant's cobbled together self promotional fantasy has done a incredible amount of harm to businesses that depend on tourism in the Sierra, while providing a disservice to anyone who would reconsider going on a trip to Mexico because of the tales Richard has concocted for this book. In an attempt to project his manhood and discover his own machismo, he has cut and pasted experiences he had more than a decade ago with some new ones provided by some of the most unsavory people around (they are the ones who happen to speak English, which was necessary for Richard). Even one of the wonderful people who took him out on his "research" trips is very disturb by what Richard gleaned through him and later wrote in the book.
In the US he would probably be sued for slander by some of the real characters in this book (I personally know some of them), unfortunately that will not happen here in Mexico, and I'm sure Richard knows that. Just like the Narcos he abhors in his book, he has taken what he can get from the locals and is moving on to the next victim. Apparently he learned a lot on his summer vacation in Mexico; how to make a buck with no regard for human life or condition.
Yes! Be afraid, be very afraid! But not of the Mexicans or Mexico, but of fictional accounts packaged as reality sold to you in the pursuit of the all mighty dollar!
This is a foolish book written in an irresponsible manner, it is not a true or accurate account of what life is like in the Sierra Madre.
Book Review: Fred C. Dobbs' Approved
Summary: 5 Stars
How can you not love a travel book where the very Prologue has the author being hunted at night by drunken locals for sport? Perhaps if some of the other writers out there had the same motivation the quality of writing in general might improve...but I digress. RICHARD GRANT's INTO THE LAWLESS HEART OF THE SIERRA MADRE GOD'S MIDDLE FINGER makes for interesting travel reading, the kind that has you wondering just what in the %$#@ was Grant thinking at times but leaving you glad that he went on his adventures and wrote about them and maybe even more pleased that you didn't have to. Mexico, if you are up on the news, is becoming an increasingly scarey place. Presently, it is on the State Department's TRAVEL ADVISORY list which means that officials in the know advise serious caution. It doesn't mean you shouldn't go but that maybe you need to be well aware of the possible dangers involved.
The last time I visited one town south of the border the Chief of Police was gunned down in the street. Away from the popular resorts and into the interior the cocaine cowboys are alive and not acting well. Grant calls it like he sees it and that may annoy some, especially those in the tourist promotion trade, it might enlighten others who decide to venture into questionable areas with naive expectations. Granted: does Grant tell the typical traveler's tale? Probably not but there is enough valuable cautionary information to be had within its pages.
God bless all mad crazy Englishmen and those who write from adventure experience, otherwise we'd be up to our collective back pockets in books by authors whose only heated close calls come from some yahoo with a cell phone spilling their coffee order in front of them at the coffee shop!
This is a good first person account, good travel writing, good adventuring, and some good history tossed in as well. Mexico is a great place to visit and if you're going then it wouldn't hurt to read all of the good vacation info you can find prior to going, talk to folks who have been there, ask what they liked and what they didn't, and steer clear of the troubled spots. It wouldn't hurt any to learn some Spanish either while you're at it.
Grant may not be a cheerleader for travel in the interior of Mexico but the boy certainly had his Treasure of Sierra Madre adventure. The book is well worth reading.
Book Review: Mountain High
Summary: 4 Stars
Richard Grant does not take Gonzo journalism to the places that Hunter S Thompson did, with the amped up, drug fueled non-stop self abuse that was written in the 1970's, but his version is the same premise.
Go to a God-forsaken place where one's life is randomly spared each day the sun comes up, and live to write about it.
At the soul of the story is Joe Brown, a seventy something author who has lived at the foothills of the Sierra Madre, and braved a rough, hardscrabble existence. Brown warns Richard Grant that he will surely die should he complete his fantasy of travelling through this area.
Grant, of course, goes in spite of this, and makes some acute observations about the people he encounters.
Some of the most eye-opening encounters are with local police. These are mean, corrupt, and hard living folk for whom justice is a concept that has never breached their consciousness. Envariably, the only way to get into their graces as an outsider is to smoke copious amounts of mota with them, or drink ones self into oblivion in their presence. Of course, buying them cocaine is a third option.
There are some truly kind and helpful people to be found on this journey, however, they are few and far between.
He writes with wonder of the Tarahumara's, and here, in my opinion he is at his best. Providing a historical context, he tells of these people who are so tough, that they cut up strips of rubber from tires, wrap them around their feet, and proceed to run 100 miles. A group of Tarahuma's were brought to Leadville, Colorado to compete in the ultra-marathon. With no training, no stretching and a diet rich in barley and hops (brewed in Mexico's finest breweries) they put the most finely trained athletes in this sport to shame.
When he slips into his alcohol and mota filled paranoiac writing of fear and life preserving actions, it can be fun, but disjointed, and not nearly as interesting.
Still, an excellent read. I am glad I learned about the lawlessness of our southern neighbors.