Trying to wrestle the Rio Grande into one book is a
foolhardy undertaking, not only because of the river’s
complexity, but because so many writers have attempted the feat
before. But this new collection from Jan Reid is a tribute to the
river rivaled only by Paul Horgan’s 1954 masterpiece, Great
River.
Rio Grande is divided into five
parts, each introduced by Reid with tales about those who wade the
river’s waters, draw life from its ditches, and, sometimes,
sit in a drunken stupor along its banks. The book’s standout
writers include Charles Bowden, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Cecilia
Ballí, who writes about the brutal murders of women in
Juárez and laments that in Ciudad de la
Muerte, “even the surreal is possible.” John Reed, who
penned Insurgent Mexico in 1914, is also here.
Though he’s notorious for writing about Pancho Villa and
later, founding the American Communist Party, Reed should be
remembered for his simple, vivid prose: “Toward evening,” he writes
of the Mexican city of Ojinaga, “when the sun went down with the
flare of a blast furnace, patrols of cavalry rode sharply across
the skyline to the night outposts. And after dark, mysterious fires
burned in the town.”
Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers
named the river “Rio de las Palmas” for its lush delta forest, but
today, the Rio Grande often dries up before reaching the sea. Reid
writes of traveling there with his guide, Gilberto Rodriguez.
Standing a quarter-mile from the sea, Rodriguez tells him, “I have
not brought you to the mouth of the river. I have brought you to
the end of the river.”
The book’s only shortcoming
is that it leaves readers wanting more. Perhaps Reid will assemble
a second volume. The Rio Grande is certainly worthy — and so
is Reid.
Rio Grande
Edited
by Jan Reid
336 pages, 50 duotone photographs, hardcover:
$29.95.
University of Texas Press, 2004.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline River tales: The Rio Grande from the headwaters to the sea.
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