Desert Blood by Alicia Gaspar de Alba

[mswyrr]

I just finished reading "a href="http://www.desertblood.net/">Desert Blood," a thriller/mystery novel written by Chican@ Studies professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba. It's a pretty mindblowing book because it's about the Juarez femicides through the eyes of a Chicana lesbian protagonist. The femicides are a tough, tough, ugly subject, and just thinking about them and what conclusions the story draws about the interlocking systems of dehumanization that have allowed them to continue is gut-wrenching. But I trusted her with it. Because of the academic work she's done, and because of who she is. And my trust was rewarded. She confronts the horror without distancing it, without objectifying or pulling back from the people victimized. Her prose is really engaging; it grabbed me and didn't let go. The way she portrays relationships really spoke to me as well. She allows the full nuances of heartache and messiness of community to play out, not flinching back and not condemning human flaws that lead people to any nastiness short of torture and murder. At the same time, though, it's very Noir in the way that the culprit is society, so everyone is complicit, everyone has the stink of it sunk into their skin.

I just finished reading it and I'm not sure how I feel about her conclusion. On one level, I love it. Instead of the Noir idea of the lone protagonist against the odds, her message is more along the lines of a protagonist in a community, with all the pain that comes with that and all the support, too. As a Chican@ queer feminist interpretation of mystery conventions, I think it rocks. But after all the terror, it felt a little too upbeat and quickly tidied away, though there were hints of all that remained unresolved underneath. I don't know. The question mark in my mind about it is nothing compared to how impressed I was by the book. I would recommend it highly to anyone, though with the caveat that it is very graphic and straightforward about the murders.