48), they read each other’s fortunes from tarot cards (p. They have little altars in their houses to honour their ancestors and departed loved ones (p. Even when mistreated, they are afraid of calling the authorities for fear of being deported (p. Many of them are uncertain about their legal status. In the face of economic collapse, they work too many jobs in order to save their families from encroaching debt (p. In the foreground of all of this, Flores is telling a story that plays out in the everyday spaces of the people who live in the borderlands, who cross the border multiple times a day for business or cheap outlet shopping, who frequent the small diners and bodegas, and who converse fluently and casually in what the author calls “border Spanglish” (p. A colleague of mine wrote a report, about how Arizona gives tax breaks for people killing immigrants trying to come here. In addition to installing a heavily armed border police force called the Border Protectors, the US government is actively encouraging its citizens to hunt down any and all refugees:į you’re a person with a gun standing here, and see somebody trying to cross in this little valley between the two border walls, you can pick them off, like the immigrant is a plastic duck at a carnival game. A third wall is in the process of being approved despite continuing immigration and “zero positive results” since the construction of the first one (p. There are now two border walls between the USA and Mexico, lining the Rio Grande on both banks. 105), and from other aspects of the worldbuilding. 101) says that he was born in Yugoslavia (p. The story is set in the very near future, approximately 5 years from now, which we can deduce from the fact that a character who is described as being thirty-three years old (p. This is even, and maybe especially, true of its depiction of the little details of its characters’ private lives and how they are being invaded by restrictive policies and their enforcement. Dick’s work, and always highly political. It is dedicated to “all the disappeared.” This sets us up for a story that is post-apocalyptic in a way I haven’t really come across before outside Philip K. His debut novel, Tears of the Trufflepig, is set in the borderlands between the USA and Mexico. Flores was born in Mexico and grew up in South Texas.
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