Borderlands in Fiction and Non-Fiction

In contemporary crime fiction, border noir typically finds its home along the demilitarized zone separating the U.S. and Mexico, the jumping-off point for illegal immigrants desperate to move north, as well as the conduit for the flow of drugs and guns across the border (guns moving south, drugs moving north). Novels set on our southern border—typically in El Paso and Juárez, or San Diego and Tijuana—have flourished in the last several decades, reflecting both our ongoing battles over immigration policy and our so-often catastrophic war on drugs. The novels listed below reflect those sociopolitical issues, to be sure, but their emotional core goes deeper than that, to border culture itself, wherever those borders may be, and to the timeless chaos of lives in transition or, worse, suspended in the perpetually deferred dream of transition.
~Bill Ott* 

Not too long ago, we took an abcreads field trip to the movies to watch Gael García Bernal in Who is Dayani Cristal?, a moving documentary which combines the forensic investigation of the body of an anonymous migrant found in Arizona with García Bernal's journey through Central America, retracing the man's steps along the migrant trail.  This, and the article in Booklist linked below, reminded us of our own proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border and inspired us to provide this list of items from the catalog.

Fiction

Angel Baby by Richard Lange

The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker

Choke Point by James C. Mitchell

Death of an Evangelista by Allana Martin

Desert Blood: the Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Dove Season: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco by Johnny Shaw

La Mordida by Jim Sanderson

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

Redback by Kirk Russell

Rules of Wolfe: A Border Noir by James Carlos Blake

Taken by Robert Crais

Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn

Triple Crossing by Sebastian Rotella

Wrecked by Tricia Fields

Border Songs by Jim Lynch   

The Border is Burning by Ito Romo

Sunland by Don Waters

Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me? by Bárbara Renaud González


Non-Fiction

The Dangerous Divide: Peril and Promise on the US-Mexico Border by Peter Eichstaedt

The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande

Left Behind: Life and Death Along the U.S. Border by Jonathan Hollingsworth

The American Wall: From the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico by Maurice Sherif

Lost Souls = Animas perdidas  [DVD]
         

Links

Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Border Noir [Booklist]*