Where and into what circumstances we are born, together, have the greatest impact on who we become as adults. If you're lucky enough to be born to privileged parents in a prosperous, democratic nation, the odds that you will live a successful life are astronomically better than someone who is born to impoverished parents who struggle to survive in a nation savaged by crime and war. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than on that one, fateful stretch of the US-Mexico border where the twin towns of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua are connected by a bridge that may as well be a bridge of destiny. For on the American side, there persists a healthy state protected by the rule of law and nourished by a strong, civil society. On the Mexican side, however, there endures a place racked by poverty, chaos and death. It was the murder capital of the world in 2009 and, according to Mr. Bowden, a journalist who has spent considerable time in this shattered city, this is just the beginning of the story.
In Murder City, Charles Bowden quickly dispenses with journalistic objectivity; nothing so ivory tower can abide on the soul-numbing, life-shattering streets of Juarez, where drug gangs have acquired so much power that not even the presence of the Mexican army can prevent their footsoldiers from posting cop-killing lists on the walls of police precincts, lists in which they thank the cops they haven't yet killed for waiting patiently for their deadly number to be called. Journalists, soldiers, government officials, judges all have a choice to make, be bought, be silent, or be killed... This is life in a failing state.
Mr. Bowden, in trying to document the catastrophe unfolding in this ruined place, comes across so many bodies, so many crimes, that he details them casually, quietly, as if for him, and for Juarez, stabbed bodies, shot bodies, burned bodies, raped bodies, are no longer remarkable. He learns the intricacies of the drug trade and hands onto his readers the surprising and existential truth that killing, here, has become so normative, so commonplace, so cheap, that often it is done almost whimsically; drug lords exercising power just to prove to their rivals that they have it, that they can do anything. He learns that the Mexican army is complicit in the killing, that many of its generals have no interest in prosecuting a war against the drug lords who are perfectly willing to offer them and their families the same cruel choice they've offered to the journalists and the judges. He learns that no one can live clean in a place where stability is a pipe-dream and life can be bought and sold more cheaply than the weapons used to snatch it away.
This is gonzo journalism at its absolute rawest and scariest. It's clear from Mr. Bowden's lyrical prose, and from the extent to which he has chased a story too few people care about, that he has wrapped himself in the same, nihilistic shroud that encloaks poor Juarez. The genesis of his investigation appears to have been the earnest pursuit of the rapists of a beauty queen who was one of the many women snatched up out of Juarez, used up and discarded like trash. In his desire to bring some closure to her story, Mr. Bowden amplifies her importance in the narrative until it's clear that she is the personification of Juarez, goodness sundered by the teeth and claws of wolves. But this isn't just a tale about the victims; Mr. Bowden saves some of his most incendiary passages for the foolish and insensitive American policies which have contributed to Juarez's fall. His searing condemnation of NAFTA is one of the most powerful and poetic eviscerations of a government policy I've ever read. Just as his interview with a particularly cruel hitman is about one of the scariest.
Mr. Bowden is an extraordinary writer who imbues this piece with an incredible, angry energy. His demons and his outrage take turns lashing out at every conceivable victim. Exceptional and unforgettable work. (5/5 Stars)
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