Whether you are going to Mexico to live or just planning a weekend there, Hello Mexico is for you. Life in Mexico may be different than what you expect, and you need to be prepared. This is a living guide, not a travel guide. It doesn’t tell you where to go or how to get there. It does explain things you need to know, like: the joys and precautions of eating in Mexico, the real driving rules and how to keep alive on the road, understanding the police and how to avoid trouble.
"Like any neighbor, Mexico and the United States are alike in many ways and different in many ways. The book compares food, money, national symbols and more. Readers will learn how children in Mexico celebrate holidays that are much like those in the U.S."--
The unforgettable characters in Josh Barkan’s astonishing and beautiful story collection—chef, architect, nurse, high school teacher, painter, beauty queen, classical bass player, plastic surgeon, businessman, mime—are simply trying to lead their lives and steer clear of violence. Yet, inevitably, crime has a way of intruding on their lives all the same. A surgeon finds himself forced into performing a risky procedure on a narco killer. A teacher struggles to protect lovestruck students whose forbidden romance has put them in mortal peril. A painter’s freewheeling ways land him in the back of a kidnapper’s car. Again and again, the walls between “ordinary life” and cartel violence are shown to be paper thin, and when they collapse the consequences are life-changing. These are stories about transformation and danger, passion and heartbreak, terror and triumph. They are funny, deeply moving, and stunningly well-crafted, and they tap into the most universal and enduring human experiences: love even in the face of danger and loss, the struggle to grow and keep faith amidst hardship and conflict, and the pursuit of authenticity and courage over apathy and oppression. With unflinching honesty and exquisite tenderness, Josh Barkan masterfully introduces us to characters that are full of life, marking the arrival of a new and essential voice in American fiction.
In this newly rediscovered memoir, Bonnie Bremser, ex-wife of Beat-poet Ray Bremser, chronicles her life on the run from the law in the early Sixties. When Ray fled to Mexico in 1961 to avoid imprisonment for armed robbery, a crime he claimed he did not commit, Bonnie followed with their baby daughter, Rachel. In a foreign country with no money and little knowledge of the language, Bonnie was forced into a life of prostitution to support her family and their drug habit. Just twenty-three years old, Bonnie was young and inexperienced, but very much in love with her husband; indeed, she was ready to go to any lengths in an attempt to keep their small family alive and together, even if it meant becoming une troia.
Remember when our alphabet agencies--CIA, DIA, NSA, FBI--were actually competent? Are you sure? Maybe they were just better at burying their mistakes...
