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A review by tfitoby
Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn
3.0
An intense slow burn literary noir that shoots itself in the foot with an ending that isn't so much slow burn as dead on arrival.
This is the story of Sam Fahey, a once promising young man who threw everything away and now exists in a meth addicted haze of pain and misery. This is also the story of Armando Santoya, a young man whose dreams were destroyed by the reality of living in a chemically poisoned Tijuana run as much by narcotraficantes as a government only interested in American dollars. Magdalena Rivera is a legal crusader left for dead whose appearance in the lives of these two men that put them on a deadly collision course.
Divided in to three parts Kem Nunn has written a slow building suspense filled tale of loss and redemption, in the first part we are introduced to our three main characters, given extensive background on how their lives came to be so messed up, in the second they are put on a path of action that you know will bring them all together, you know it will be devastating when it occurs and then part three doesn't live up to that promise, at least not in any way I would have expected.
The story of Armando is horrifying, told in such a way as to make you sympathise with his plight and yet be revolted by the outcome of his choices. The slow decent of a naive dreamer in to madness is captured perfectly in a landscape painted vividly by a man who clearly knows the horrors of the streets of Tijuana.
The evocation of place is central to Nunn's literature here, without his fully realised imagery of a violent place populated by the lost, the disenfranchised, the abused, the deformed, the dangerous and the greedy the story of Armando and Magalena could have no real weight. The same can be said of the citizens dwelling on the American side of the border, in brief glimpses of Fahey's neighbours et al the insight in to the way of life and mindset provide understanding of who Fahey is and what he struggled against for his entire life.
Great things are achieved in this book, but they are let down by an ending of disappointingly small proportions. It's almost as if Nunn strayed too far from the noir aspects of this novel, found his literary leanings moving him away from the dark to a more wholesome denouement. It's not all happy families but it certainly didn't reach the depths of depravity in heart wrenching confrontations you are led to believe will occur. A shame, but don't let that stop you reading, Kem Nunn has got some real talent when it comes to this stuff and I recommend you check him out when you can.
This is the story of Sam Fahey, a once promising young man who threw everything away and now exists in a meth addicted haze of pain and misery. This is also the story of Armando Santoya, a young man whose dreams were destroyed by the reality of living in a chemically poisoned Tijuana run as much by narcotraficantes as a government only interested in American dollars. Magdalena Rivera is a legal crusader left for dead whose appearance in the lives of these two men that put them on a deadly collision course.
Divided in to three parts Kem Nunn has written a slow building suspense filled tale of loss and redemption, in the first part we are introduced to our three main characters, given extensive background on how their lives came to be so messed up, in the second they are put on a path of action that you know will bring them all together, you know it will be devastating when it occurs and then part three doesn't live up to that promise, at least not in any way I would have expected.
The story of Armando is horrifying, told in such a way as to make you sympathise with his plight and yet be revolted by the outcome of his choices. The slow decent of a naive dreamer in to madness is captured perfectly in a landscape painted vividly by a man who clearly knows the horrors of the streets of Tijuana.
The evocation of place is central to Nunn's literature here, without his fully realised imagery of a violent place populated by the lost, the disenfranchised, the abused, the deformed, the dangerous and the greedy the story of Armando and Magalena could have no real weight. The same can be said of the citizens dwelling on the American side of the border, in brief glimpses of Fahey's neighbours et al the insight in to the way of life and mindset provide understanding of who Fahey is and what he struggled against for his entire life.
Great things are achieved in this book, but they are let down by an ending of disappointingly small proportions. It's almost as if Nunn strayed too far from the noir aspects of this novel, found his literary leanings moving him away from the dark to a more wholesome denouement. It's not all happy families but it certainly didn't reach the depths of depravity in heart wrenching confrontations you are led to believe will occur. A shame, but don't let that stop you reading, Kem Nunn has got some real talent when it comes to this stuff and I recommend you check him out when you can.