Mariguano: A Novel (Paperback)
Set on the Texas/Mexico border during the early years of Reagan’s “War on Drugs,” Mariguano tells the story of contrabandisto Don Julio Cortina’s ill-fated attempt to secure the Plaza at a national level by fixing the 1988 Mexican Presidential elections.
The story is told through the eyes of Cortina’s son, El Johnny, who bears witness to his father’s cocaine-fueled transformation from devoted head of family to self-destructive head of a criminal organization that is rife with betrayal and deceit.
Anyone who wants to understand the tragedy of modern-day Mexico and America’s complicity in the Mexican drug wars will want to read Mariguano, a novel that recalls classic crime narratives such as Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguys or William S. Burroughs’s Junky but also reads like the work of the best Mexican and Latin American novelists such as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez.
The story is told through the eyes of Cortina’s son, El Johnny, who bears witness to his father’s cocaine-fueled transformation from devoted head of family to self-destructive head of a criminal organization that is rife with betrayal and deceit.
Anyone who wants to understand the tragedy of modern-day Mexico and America’s complicity in the Mexican drug wars will want to read Mariguano, a novel that recalls classic crime narratives such as Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguys or William S. Burroughs’s Junky but also reads like the work of the best Mexican and Latin American novelists such as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez.
JUAN OCHOA is licensed to practice law in his beloved Mexico. Ochoa has been everything from pistolero to professor and is currently teaching English at South Texas College. He lives happily with his wife and daughter in Mission, Texas, on Inspiration Road. Ochoa is an avid boxing fan.
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“Mariguano is the first novel in English to capture what it feels like to live on a day-to-day basis in the world of Mexican drug trafficking organizations.”
—Howard Campbell author, Drug War Zone
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“Ochoa’s first novel is an important debut in American letters. The story is gripping, the characters compelling, and it gives us a fascinating glimpse into a world we only see in the headlines. Drug wars, border violence, and a coming-of-age story converge in this beautifully written first novel.”
—Daniel Chacón, author, And the Shadows Took Him and Hotel Juárez: Stories, Rooms, and Loops