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| God's Middle Finger, Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre | 
| Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Category: EBooks
List Price: $11.99
Buy New: $9.59
You Save: $2.40 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 4617
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.210484
ASIN: B0016P7SH6
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
"Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops -- the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre -- but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls ""an unfortunate fascination"" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them -- until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport. With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world. "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 Mountain High November 22, 2008
Richard Grant does not take Gonzo journalism to the places that Hunter S Thompson did, with the amped up, drug fueled non-stop self abuse that was written in the 1970's, but his version is the same premise.
Go to a God-forsaken place where one's life is randomly spared each day the sun comes up, and live to write about it.
At the soul of the story is Joe Brown, a seventy something author who has lived at the foothills of the Sierra Madre, and braved a rough, hardscrabble existence. Brown warns Richard Grant that he will surely die should he complete his fantasy of travelling through this area.
Grant, of course, goes in spite of this, and makes some acute observations about the people he encounters.
Some of the most eye-opening encounters are with local police. These are mean, corrupt, and hard living folk for whom justice is a concept that has never breached their consciousness. Envariably, the only way to get into their graces as an outsider is to smoke copious amounts of mota with them, or drink ones self into oblivion in their presence. Of course, buying them cocaine is a third option.
There are some truly kind and helpful people to be found on this journey, however, they are few and far between.
He writes with wonder of the Tarahumara's, and here, in my opinion he is at his best. Providing a historical context, he tells of these people who are so tough, that they cut up strips of rubber from tires, wrap them around their feet, and proceed to run 100 miles. A group of Tarahuma's were brought to Leadville, Colorado to compete in the ultra-marathon. With no training, no stretching and a diet rich in barley and hops (brewed in Mexico's finest breweries) they put the most finely trained athletes in this sport to shame.
When he slips into his alcohol and mota filled paranoiac writing of fear and life preserving actions, it can be fun, but disjointed, and not nearly as interesting.
Still, an excellent read. I am glad I learned about the lawlessness of our southern neighbors.
 Booze, drugs and danger November 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"God's Middle Finger" reminded me of a much racier version of articles from the old men's adventure magazine, Argosy. The writing here is proficient, and each of the many episodes included in the book is eminently readable and fun. Ultimately, what I didn't get about this book was why anyone would want to go into the Mexican Sierra Madre. If Richard Grant's description of the area is half accurate, there's not much there but dust, heartache and the great risk of dying a violent death. There's a lot of Mexico that I find more appealing.
Still, Grant's adventures in the lawless Mexican north make for some interesting reading. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for a story with a beginning and tidy ending.
 The Wrong Side of Mexico November 19, 2008
This book is a travel memoir of the author's trips through the Sierra Madre in Northern Mexico. Grant, a writer from Britain, developed a fascination with the area and decided he would travel through the region to see what he could see. He was not looking for scenic vistas, however, but death defying adventures. Along his route, he met drunks, drug traffickers, farmers and ordinary folk just trying to make a living.
I never heard of the Sierra Madre before reading this book, and I certainly have no desire to see the region for myself after reading Grant's description. Outrageously high murder rates, grinding poverty, almost no government. . . the region is not a likely tourist mecca. As an experiment in anarchy, or hands-off government, it lends support to the argument that even bad government is better than none at all. In any case, the book is well written and engaging, but I have no means to judge whether Grant's accounts are an accurate portrayal of the people and culture of the region.
There are some places that you just shouldn't go.... November 16, 2008
One of the great cliches of horror fiction involves the character - often a reporter - who decides to go to a forbidden area. The place has a bad reputation and people warn him not to go, but he plays down the threats and goes anyways, only to find himself in over his head. When reading a horror novel or watching a horror movie, we often wonder if the guy is a bit of an idiot. What then, should the reader think of Richard Grant, the author of God's Middle Finger?
Grant decides to make an excursion into the Mexican region known as the Sierra Madre, an essentially lawless territory that starts just south of Arizona and New Mexico and descends through hundreds of miles of mountainous land. The Sierra Madre - perhaps most famous for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - is a place that is almost designed for outlaws and served as a hideout for Geronimo and Pancho Villa. The relatively sparse population is principally sustained by drug income, primarily by sales to its northern neighbor. Generally, it's not a place for the casual tourist.
Grant is aware of all this when he sets out for his trip and is constantly warned that as a white Englishman, he will be viewed with particular suspicion, which is not good in a land where suspicion can lead to murder. Grant, however, is reasonably certain that he can persevere, a feeling that will be challenged multiple times as he gets into more and more perilous situations, culminating in his being hunted for sport by some Mexican "hillbillies" (it spoils nothing to say he survives; after all, he wrote the book).
This is not a book that you're likely to see promoted by the Mexican Tourist Board. There is very little good that Grant has to say about the majority of the Sierra Madre population. As he portrays them, they are violent, constantly drunk, viciously sexist, cruel and superstitious criminals, while being ruled by a government that is both incompetent and thoroughly corrupt. There are a few good people in the bunch, and Grant learns that to survive in the Sierra Madre is more a matter of who you know than what you know.
Grant's writing is engaging, with humor intermixed with some rather dark scenes. Even if you question his wisdom, he does narrate a compelling tale, one that argues that the land can shape the way the people are even more than race or language.
Sparks your imagination. November 15, 2008
This book began as an inspiring romp into the last vestige of the old west. The canyon land of the Mexican Sierras was described for us gringos who've never gotten this far south of the border, and the culture, from an outsider's perspective, somewhat illuminated. However, somewhere around the middle of the book I began to find the author's account somewhat superficial and in fact, a bit dull. He promised us Hollywood style theatrics on the first page, but delivered neither these, nor a serious accounting of the people and the landscape. His statistics on the importance of the drug culture to the Mexican economy I did find illuminating. It seems that the access to easy money in the US has killed off the peasant culture, without providing any kind of reliable middle class ease in its place. The book is worth picking up, but I was left wanting a bit more, or a bit less.
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