The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border - Softcover

Cantú, Francisco

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0525536256 ISBN 13: 9780525536253

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2018

Synopsis

"A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk - and lose - their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective."
--Phil Klay

For Francisco Cantu, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantu joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners are posted to remote regions crisscrossed by drug routes and smuggling corridors, where they learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantu tries not to think where the stories go from there.

Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantu discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the whole story. Searing and unforgettable, The Line Becomes a River makes urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line.

About this title

Review

"In a courageous endeavor to comprehend the complex issues that characterize America's border with Mexico, Francisco Cantu joined the US Border Patrol. His story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting. The bilingual Mr. Cantu advocates here for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric."--Barry Lopez

"A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk - and lose -- their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective." --Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

"Cantu's story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. He advocates for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting." -Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men

"This book tells the hard poetry of the desert heart. If you think you know about immigration and the border, you will see there is much to learn. And you will be moved by its unexpected music." -Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway

"Cantu's story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. He advocates for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting." -Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men

"This book tells the hard poetry of the desert heart. If you think you know about immigration and the border, you will see there is much to learn. And you will be moved by its unexpected music." -Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway

"There is a line dividing what we know and do not know. Some see the world from one shore and some from the other. Cantu brings the two together to a spiritual whole. My gratitude for this work of the soul." -Sandra Cisneros

"A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk - and lose -- their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective." --Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

"Cantu's story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. He advocates for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting." -Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men

"This book tells the hard poetry of the desert heart. If you think you know about immigration and the border, you will see there is much to learn. And you will be moved by its unexpected music." -Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway

"Fresh, urgent...A devastating narrative of the very real human effects of depersonalized policy." --Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"There is a line dividing what we know and do not know. Some see the world from one shore and some from the other. Cantu brings the two together to a spiritual whole. My gratitude for this work of the soul." -Sandra Cisneros

"A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk - and lose -- their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective." --Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

"Cantu's story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. He advocates for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting." -Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men

"This book tells the hard poetry of the desert heart. If you think you know about immigration and the border, you will see there is much to learn. And you will be moved by its unexpected music." -Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway

Book Description

An electrifying memoir from a Mexican-American US Border Patrol guard

Edition details

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0525536256
• ISBN 13: 9780525536253
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256