The Devil’s Highway

Luis Alberto Urrea has written a book called the Devil’s Highway, published in March 2004. If a book can break your heart, this one is it. The book jacket reads as follows:

"In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, a place called the Devil’s Highway. Fathers and sons, brothers and strangers, entered a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it. For hundreds of yeara, men have tried to conquer this land, and for hundreds of years the desert has stolen their souls and swallowed their blood. Along, the Devil’s Highway, days are so hot that dead bodies naturally mummify almost immediately. And that May, twenty-six men went in.

Twelve came back out.

Now, Luis Alberto Urrea tells the story of this modern odyssey. He takes us back to the small towns and unpaved cities south of the border, where the poor fall prey to dreams of a better life and the sinister promises of smugglers. We meet the men who will decide to make the crossing along the Devil’s Highway and, on the other side of the border, the men who are ready to prevent them from reaching their destination. Urrea reveals exactly what happened when the twenty-six headed into the wasteland, and how they were brutally betrayed by the one man they had trusted most. And from that betrayal came the inferno, a descent in a world of cactus spines, labyrinths of sand, mountains shaped liked the teeth of a shark, and a screaming sun so intense that even at midnight the temperature only drops to 97 degrees. And yet, the men would not give up. The Devil’s Highway is a story of astonishing courage and strength, of an epic battle against circumstance. These twenty-six men would look the devil in the eye-- and some of them wound not blink."

Book Review:

“Tragic drama puts a human face on the foibles of mankind. Luis Urrea has put a face on one of the great tragedies of our time, death and survival on the U.S./Mexican border. Like the ancient Greek plays, The Devil’s Highway elevates the death of the Yuma 14 to the role of tragic heroes. So we can say a new genre is born in our land; call it Frontera tragic drama.” Rudolfo Anaya