Un escritor cincuentón se convierte, de repente, en el jefe de la policía municipal de Santa Ana, al norte de México, con ayuntamiento de izquierda cercado por la ofensiva del PRI. Con hilo maestro y aderezado con el crimen de una mujer joven y un lugar plagado de pistoleros, sale a flote la realidad de la sociedad mexicana.

review of
Paco Ignacio Taibo II's Life Itself
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 10, 2019

I've sd it before & I'll say it 'til my dying day.. maybe w/ a few words missing in its last iteration, Taibo is the bomb, the shit, the bee's-knees, the extrusion on the fidelity-smurf. Life Itself was no exception.. but it was exceptional. It begins w/ informative author's notes:

"Note II: For the non-Mexican reader, the PRI is the official government party that, since the close of the 1920s, has ruled Mexico in a civil dictatorship rife with violence and electoral fraud; members of the PRI are called "priítistas." "Cacique" is a term for the political boss of an agrarian zone; originally the word meant "Indian chief." Since the 1920s, Mexican labor unions have operated under heavy government control; in their opposition to these organizations, "red" independents refer to them as "yellow unions."" - p -iv (reviewer's numbering: it means 4pp before p 1)

It's this sort of educational background that makes these novels so important to me. Of course, what helps is that they're also of interest to me just as writing & stories.

"Send me a package by Frontier Bus Lines, a bunch of black ribbons for the Olivetti portable, the cotton ones they sell at the shop on the corner, as well as the original, which is in a red briefcase with a lock, and a pile of novels by J. P. Ma"[n]"chette that I left on my side of the bed" - p 10

For those of you who may be too young to remember, an "Olivetti" is a brand of typewriter, so he's asking for the things that provide the ink that the keys impress upon. As for "Machette"? I don't know his or her work so I look them up online & find nothing. BUT THAT'S BECAUSE THE NAME WAS MISSPELLED "Machette" instead of "Manchette". Later in this bk it was spelled correclty so I looked for books by him again & ordered 5 online.

"If you're going to divorce me, for God's sake send me the blue turtleneck sweater and the aspirins, Manchette's novels,"

[..]

"the correspondence with the Strugatski brothers, in a folder under S in the file cabinet" - p 71

The Strugatski Brothers! They're in my 'pantheon' of great SF writers: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/ReviewerSF.html .

"One and a half yards from the entrance he stopped in front of a bookcase of Latin American literature when he saw Soriano's There Will Be No More Pain or Forgetting. A book he'd been looking for for years. Beside it, The Compañeros by Rolo Díez, just out, a novel they talked about in Mexico City, about the last years of the Argentine madness and the guerilla movement. He went on browsing, squatting before the bookshelves. He had forgotten why he was there." - p 109

That wd be Osvaldo Soriano (1943-1997), an Argentinian writer. I just ordered his Winter Quarters: A Novel of Argentina & A Funny Dirty Little War in English & Díez's Tequila Blue in English — the point being, obviously, learn from those who know.

"The novel continues. It is a novel about tattoos. Its characters are a commander of the judicial police who has a tattoo on his ass that says: Who arrives here does not leave alive; also a North American who has a tiny rose on her forearm with the phrase Loneliness is the heart of life. Also, so it won't be too easy, an albino gunman who has a plumed serpent tattooed on his left arm.

"As you will see, the novel appears to belong to Vázquez Montalbán and not to me." - p168

The reference being to Montalbán's novel Tattoo wch I've read a reviewed here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2570126786 . For that matter, you might as well go to my Tattoos website: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Tattoos.html .

The basic plot is that the main character is a crime fiction writer who's asked to be the chief of police in a town where the politics are successfully 'progressive' enuf for the forces-that-be who're opposed to such progressiveness to try to undermine it. Hence, previous sympathetic chiefs have been murdered.

At the same time that this new police chief takes the job seriously & conducts actual investigations he's also a bit flip about aspects of it.

""Do I get a sheriff's badge?" he asked his second-in-command.

""The truth is, I never asked. They do give ID."

""Without a badge, I feel half out of uniform," said José Daniel, stopping at a toy stand. He picked through the buttons: there were Snoopys, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, Che Guevara, the Sandinista Front, Rafael and Rocio Durcal. He chose one that showed Spiderman in a posture of challenge." - pp 19-20

Armed w/ a Spiderman badge, he's sure to get out of sticky situations.

""Serious as in do people kill? Yes, they kill, and to tell you the truth, I don't like it. I don't like it when they kill in cold blood. I don't like it when they let fear loose in the streets. This was the land of the bosses, sir, a company town; here they beat you up for breathing, and even more for smiling. There's a lot of bastards running around loose - - - A lot of fucking bastards running around loose. And they don't like what we're doing."

""And what are we doing?" said José Daniel, staring at the assistant chief of his yet-unseen police force of his still half-guessed-at city.

""Popular power, my good man. What kind of a fucking question is that, excuse me? Do you think you could be chief of police of a PRI town?"" - pp 21-22

So there you have it. Turning a decteive story novelist into a police chief & having him be the hero in an adversarial former-company-town environment is a very interesting premise for a novel IMO.

The writer character inflects his behaviour w/ literary & filmic references.

""Are you speaking to the assistant police chief of Santa Ana?" asked José Daniel in full drag, changing from Bogart into Clint Eastwood and pointing a finger at the suited man's belly. "You are obstructing a police inquiry.""

[..]

""Look here, the big honcho of the CTM*, neither more nor less," said Blind Man, pointing to a fat man in a blue shirt standing in front of the door.

""Are you in line for the women's bathroom, sir?" asked José Daniel, doing a Lew Archer with a light touch of Woody Allen."

"*Federation of Mexican Workers, a yellow union." - p 23

""Who locked you up, ladies?" asked José Daniel.

""Domínguez, the owner."

""Him, Domínguez, and the yellow leader of the CTM, Martin Guerra, that revolting fathead."

""None of that now," threatened the fathead.

""To jail with the two of them, Blind Man," said José Daniel. "Accused of kidnapping. We'll indict them right now."" - p 24

Ha ha! If only! The writer-turned-policeman pursues 2 of the town's corrupt bosses for his 1st arrest b/c they were trying to intimidate employees out of labor organizing. Ahhhh.. Here's another sample villain:

"Number three, all agree, and numbers one and two on certain anonymous lists, Manuel Reyna, Blackie. A hired gun who runs the shock troops of the PRI in Santa Ana. Responds directly to the will of the state capital, doesn't treat with the local powers. Everyone says it was he who fired on the April 20 demonstration with a machine gun from the church tower. Someone told me that before being a gunman he sold agricultural equipment. They call him Blackie because he's an albino. Good to know that. Better to notice him from afar." - p 43

A prostitute in the employ of a local boss attempts to compromise the new police chief. He ejects her from his room & pulls an act of poetic justice:

""Greñas? . . . Do you know where Don Sabás lives? . . . There's a naked woman in the hallway of my hotel, a whore whom I believe is named Maria. Arrest her on morals charges, and take her to Don Sabás . . . That's what I said . . . Are you married? . . . Better yet . . . Take her to the front door and tell them that the chief of poilce ordered she be delivered there, because the lady gave that as her address . . . Exactly."" - p 62

Beautiful.

It seems that almost everything I chose to comment on in this novel is a literary reference:

""My neighbor stands up at night when he thinks that nobody sees him," said the voice on the phone. José Daniel does not need to ask who was its owner. He reacted as a character out of Earl Derr Biggers.

""What else can you tell me, Mrs. Ling?"" - p 182

Earl Derr Biggers being, of course, the author of the Charlie Chan novels. Not only have I made a movie about the use of yellowface by Warner Oland in Charlie Chan movies ( https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ) I've also reviewed Yunte Huang's analysis of the Charlie Chan phenomena: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1158289-charlie-biggers-huang?chapter=1 .

Read on!! ( )

José Daniel Fierro, convinto democratico e indolente scrittore di romanzigialli, si ritrova catapultato nei panni del capo della polizia di Santa Ana,sgangherata cittadina mineraria del Nord messicano in mano a latifondisti euomini senza scrupoli, "dediti al messicanissimo mestiere di uccidere sucommissione". Con il distintivo dell'Uomo Ragno sul petto, una squadra dibalordi al suo fianco e svariati cadaveri sul suo cammino, Fierro scopriràtutto senza risolvere nulla, perché il caso preferirà svelarsi da sé. Diario,epistolario e avventura si mescolano in questo romanzo iperreale, una"ensalada de fruta" fresca d'umori e colori, ma dove qualche "hijo de puta hainfilato un peperoncino

Un escritor cincuentón se convierte de repente en el jefe de la policía municipal de Santa Ana, al norte de México, con ayuntamiento de izquierda cercado por la ofensiva del PRI. ( )