  C. M. MAYOAuthor of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, etc. |
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 Book Review
by C.M. Mayo U.S.-MEXICO BORDER MEMOIR: A SLOW TROT HOME  by Lisa G.
SharpWheatmark, 2014 pp. 224 ISBN-10: 1627870741 ISBN-13: 978-1627870740 Review originally published in Madam Mayo Blog, October 13, 2014 It was thanks to Women Writing the West that I first came upon the extraordinary writing of Lisa G. Sharp. Mexicans sit up and take notice when I mention that she's the granddaughter of the owner of the Greene Cattle Company, which had its headquarters in Cananea, a place synonymous with an infamous massacre in the years leading up to the Mexican Revolution. But to get beyond that: A Slow Trot Home, Sharp's memoir about growing up, first in her grandmother's house in Cananea, and then for most of her life on San Rafael, a working cattle ranch a scooch north of the border in a remote corner of Arizona, is one of the most beautifully written and moving memoirs I have ever read. The sweep of the land, the peace and violence of the sky, the people, both Mexican and American, and all the animals, come alive with a rare vividness. It's poetic prose that, in places, breaks open into poetry itself, as with this list in the chapter "Winter": |
Frozen water troughs. |
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By the end, as she returns to visit her mother's lonely grave, one understands what this is: an elegy for a world that is no more. Now the SUVs rumbling by might more likely carry birdwatchers or Border Patrol officers than ranchers or ranch hands. 9/11 changed everything on the US-Mexico Border. And in what had been velvet nights, electric lights from Mexico glow on the horizon. Literati will note that this is self-published. I think that says far more about the state of publishing than it does this splendid book. I recommend it for anyone interested in a fine read, and especially for anyone interested in ranching culture and the US-Mexico border region. |
