Keith Rant

Read from Tuesday, March 22nd to Thursday, March 24th.

Waiter Rant, by Steve Dublanica.  This was a very interesting book that caught my attention one day in Borders.  It is a non-fiction account of a waiter's life at a high end restaurant in New York City.  I am also a waiter, and this book at first glance seemed like a humorous and light glance at the industry.  For most of the book it was like that; horror stories about customers, terrible tips, terrible owners and managers, kitchen/wait staff interactions.  It was all very true, but then the similarities between Steve and I became even more apparent.  Steve struggled to finish putting the book together, and at The Bistro he became increasingly upset and frustrated with the management.  He finally gathered the strength to quit and pursue what he loved, the writing.

In the beginning Steve was a seminary dropout, and kicked around a few jobs until he started waiting at age 31.  He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but he got sucked into the restaurant life and found it hard to leave.  He left the first restaurant and became a waiter/manager at the Bistro, an upscale Italian place in Manhattan.  Steve describes many things about a waiter's life in different chapters, each one with a certain example to illustrate his point.  He talks about the types of people that become waiters, hygienic practices, immigration issues with the kitchen, drinking and drug abuse on the job, the different types of tippers, the paranoid delusions of the owner, Fluvio, snobby foodies, celebrities at the restaurant.  Steve had been writing a blog, and he was anonymous, and this blog led to a book deal.  For most of the book, he acknowledges the process of writing it. 

Once the deal is confirmed, many of the staff start to resent him for taking the good tables still.  There is a lot of open dissent, and finally Steve cracks and leaves the Bistro.  It is all very similar to how I see my own life.  I started waiting tables earlier than he did, and I wish I had a book deal waiting for me.  Also, the customers at my own Bistro are not as bad as the customers in the book.  Most of my customers are students, and while they can be picky and shitty tippers, they are not rude to the server on the most part.  However, the paranoid management is something I can relate to.  Always watching, and waiting to make a big deal about the smallest thing.  Maybe I should start my own blog...  Three and a half out of five stars.

Moby - Keith

Read from Monday, March 14th to Tuesday, March 22nd.

Moby Dick, the great classic from Herman Melville.  Considered one of the great American stories, it is known by most people, but actually read by not too many.  It is a difficult, but majestic read.  Slow at the beginning, you can watch it slowly but surely build up to that tragic climax that we all could see coming. 

Ishmael is the narrator, and he sets off from New York for Nantucket in order to find some work on a whaling ship.  Along the way, he is forced to share a bed with Queequeg, a harpooneer from the South Pacific, that has been a cannibal.  They become good friends, and decide to ship together on the Pequod.  They talk to the two owners of the ship, and secure work from them, but they hear strange stories about the Captain, Ahab.  Ahab does not present himself until a few days into the voyage, and when he does appear, he explains his over-arching goal for the ship and crew: to kill Moby Dick.  Moby Dick is a great, white Sperm Whale that bit off Ahab's leg on a previous voyage.  He has also attacked and killed many other whalers over the many years.  Ahab has sworn a personal revenge against the White Whale, and he vows to never rest until he has killed him. 

This revenge is allowed to fester as the Pequod goes about her business hunting sperm whales.  Also on board is first mate Starbuck (for which the coffee chain was named after!).  Starbuck is the voice of reason.  He wants to catch the easy whales, and then go home to his wife and child.  He is the only one who stands up to Ahab and his madness.  There are also second and third mates Stubb and Flask, as well as many other sailors from all around the world.  Ishmael is the narrator, but does not get involved in any of the drama on board.

Ishmael describes in many chapters all about the business of whaling.  He tells the history, the different countries and customs.  He describes in great detail the anatomy of the whale, and he classifies all the different types of known whales at the time (1851).  He classifies them as big fish and not mammals.  Ishmael also tells the process of catching whales, and it is illustrated by the action several times.  The ship's lookouts on the mast spot a spout from the blowhole, and then three smaller boats are dropped to the water, and teams row out to the whale.  The harpooneer shoots him, and then the crew hang on with the rope until the whale is too tired and dies from the struggle.  The whale is towed back to the Pequod, where they dissect him and remove all the oil and spermaceti, which is used for candles, makeup, perfume, and machine lubricant, and looks like the substance after which it is named.  Ishmael extols whaling as one of the great, noble professions, even though it is nowadays considered immoral by most countries. 

The Pequod sails around the world into the Pacific, killing whales along the way.  Often they meet other whaling vessels, and learn the stories from those crews.  Ahab's first question every time is 'hast thou seen the White Whale?'  Each ship they pass represents a different omen and foreshadows what is to come.  One is full of whale oil and heading for home with the crew dancing and drinking with new island wives.  Another ship has lost a crew member due to a fight with Moby-Dick.  A final ship has lost a boat with the Captain's young son, and they beg Ahab to help look for it.  But Ahab is so focused on finding Moby Dick that he refuses.  Their fate is set on a course that Ahab refuses to change.  A storm hits, and the crew hear voices of drowned sailors at night, and they see these as bad omens for what is to come.  However, no one is able to challenge Ahab.  Even Starbuck, who at one point contemplated shooting Ahab in his sleep, tries in vain to convince Ahab to turn around and head for home, but he is not about to attempt a mutiny.

Moby Dick is sighted, and they give chase.  The first and second day he wrecks a boat and manages to escape, but still they pursue him.  The third day Ahab and his boat alone go out to catch him.  Ahab manages to stab him, but Moby Dick turns around and attacks the Pequod.  He sinks deep and comes straight up into the hull, and the ship sinks.  Ahab shoots another harpoon, and hits, but the rope catches around his neck and drags him under with the whale.  The small boat is wrecked and is sucked into the whirlpool of the lost Pequod.  All hands drown, except for Ishmael, who clings to the life buoy that was at one point a coffin.  He is rescued by the whaling ship looking for her lost son.

It is a slow start to the book, and the descriptions about the whaling business takes you out of the action, and is distracting.  I skipped through some of those parts.  But the build-up to the climax is superb.  The language is grand, and it reads as a Shakespearean play.  Each character has a soliloquy explaining their feelings.  There are many memorable quotes including the famous last words by Ahab:

"To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.  Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"

Good classic, and I learned a lot about what it was like to be a whaler.  The ship Pequod was like a collection of all humanity, and the chase represents many things to many people.  Man against Nature, Man against God, Man against his own Fate and his choice of Free Will.  It is rife with symbols and foreshadowing and beautiful imagery.  Four and a half out of five stars.

Also, this is a painting I got from Urban Outfitters about a year ago.  It is a painting of the final climax of Moby Dick and the Pequod.

All the Pretty Keiths

Read from Tuesday, March 8th to Monday, March 14th. 

All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy.  This is the first book in McCarthy's critically acclaimed Border Trilogy.  I recently bought books 2 and 3 as well.  This trilogy I first heard about in A Novel Bookstore, so I was eager to check it out.  McCarthy is an amazing writer (I've only previously read The Road).  What I liked the most is the simple storytelling, and the compact, neat plot.  It is just a flat-out great story.  The style is amazing as well, and it is just beautiful imagery. 

John Grady Cole runs away from his family's Texas ranch sometime after the end of WWII.  It is about to be sold by his estranged mother after his grandfather passed away.  So Cole, along with his best friend Lacey, take two horses and ride to Mexico, looking for work on a ranch somewhere.  They are both two teenage Texas cowboys, rugged, tough, and skilled riders.  Before crossing the border, they meet another lone rider, younger than them, Jimmy Blevins.  Blevins is a hothead, who ostensibly stole a horse and is running from someone.  Reluctantly, the three ride together into Mexico.  A few days later however, there is a thunderstorm, and Blevins, who is afraid of lightning, loses his horse and gun.  The next day, they see the horse in a small town.  Blevins recklessly steals the horse and in the chase is separated from Cole and Lacey. 

Cole and Lacey, believing their troubles behind them, come to a huge Mexican ranch, where they are hired as ranch-hands.  Cole impresses the owner by taming 16 wild horses in four days.  He is hired to help the stud racehorse breed.  However, Cole quickly falls in love with the owner's daughter, Alejandra.  They have a secret affair, but the girl's godmother does not approve, saying she is trying to protect her reputation. Their love is forbidden, and when Alejandra confesses to her father, he gives up the two Americans to the police, who have been searching for them for involvement in Blevins' horse-stealing.  Sent to jail back in the small town, they reunite with Blevins, and find out that he eventually returned to the town and shot three people while trying to get his gun back.  Cole and Lacey are considered to be accomplices.

 The three boys are taken by truck to an abandoned farm, and the police captain leads Blevins away, and shoots him.  Cole and Lacey are horrified, and they are both placed in a tough prison.  All the prisoners beat them up constantly.  Lacey is stabbed and hospitalized, and then Cole is attacked in the mess-hall.  Cole had bought a knife and kills his attacker, and then passes out from being stabbed himself.  Waking up, he finds that both Lacey and him have been released from prison.  Alejandra's godmother paid to get them released, with the only condition being that Cole never see Alejandra again.  Lacey goes back to America, but Cole goes back to the ranch and tries to find her.  They have a secret rendezvous, but it is just one last night.  Alejandra made a promise, and chooses her family and honor over Cole. 

 Heartbroken and desperate, Cole rides back to the small town and takes the police captain hostage.  He demands his original three horses be returned to him.  They go to a farm and Cole rides away with the three horses he crossed over into Mexico with.  However, there is a gunfight, and he is shot in the leg.  There is a long chase, and he holds the Captain hostage for a long time, but eventually Cole makes it back to America.  He is awarded the original stolen horse by a judge, and he reunites with Lacey.

 Cole is deeply troubled by his conscience for having killed the man in prison.  It is a neat compact story, but it is by no means a complete happy ending.  I finished the book a few weeks ago, but the story still sticks with me.  There was a movie made with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, and it stuck very close to the original story, and I though was very good.  But the language of the book is definitely something to be experienced.  McCarthy has an interesting technique where he doesn't use quotation marks, so sometimes that and the heavy dialect can be confusing.  It took me a few days just getting started, but then when the action picked up I flew through it.  I'm looking forward to the other books in the trilogy.  Four and a half out of five stars.

The Next 100 Years

Read from Monday, March 7th to Tuesday, March 8th.

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.  I first saw this book in the gift shop at the end of the Spy Museum here in DC.  I was fascinated, and read almost a whole chapter, but ultimately did not buy it at the time.  But when I saw it in the Borders at Reagan Airport, I decided to finally purchase the book.  It is a fascinating look at what our future could ultimately look like. Friedman uses a specific, scientific method to make forecasts in culture, demographics, technology, and geopolitics for the next 90 years.  He obviously makes no claims on being perfect, but he does have good credentials, being the head of a forecasting think tank.  He is specific about many things within the next decade or two, and then as things progress and there are more possibilities for diversions, he is less sure, but he still picks the path that he sees most likely.  It reads like a history book of the future.  Friedman in fact bases his theories heavily on patterns that he has witnessed during the past century or two, and he explains these geopolitical patterns and then extrapolates upon them.

Nothing is too crazy or far-fetched.  Aliens do not invade, there is not a nuclear holocaust, and robots do not become fully sentient and overthrow their human masters.  Although, there are many interesting ideas.  Friedman's main argument is that this next century is a century of American power.  America is not in decline, and is in fact in perfect position to control global trade and the world.  America, with its position straddling both oceans and the most powerful navy, can control trade.  The current war with the Muslims will be just a minor bump that will subside, and is actually a part of America's overall plan.  Having already complete control over their own continent, America wants to disrupt any power on the Eurasian land mass from becoming too powerful and challenging their authority.  Friedman argues that politicians are really all alike, and their moves are severely much more limited than we think.  There really is a set course that the country can follow. 

China will fragment because of the massive wealth disparity it has generated.  It will not be a threat, but instead Russia will regain strength.  There will be a new, short cold war around 2020 as Russia tries to reclaim the lost Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe.  Western Europe will lose power and political motivation, and Poland will gain strength, as it will gather other Eastern European states into a coalition, and get backing from the U.S. to stop Russia.  However, Russia will fracture and split up.  Turkey, Poland and Japan will all poach off the broken Russia, and they will gain strength in their spheres of influence.  Meanwhile, the world will face a demographic problem.  No longer will we have to worry about overpopulation, but instead depopulation in the developed world.  Migration will be encouraged, and the U.S. has the best to offer.

Around 2040, the world will start moving toward a new World War.  Japan and Turkey will be growing in strength and influence, and the U.S. wants to put a stop to that.  America wants to encourage them to play by America's rules, but Turkey and Japan won't see it that way.  They will see it as a threat to survival.  Much as in WWII, they will form a coalition, and think they need to knock America out quickly and make them try to reach a deal.  Friedman at this point conjures up a premise for the war.  He gets very specific, so that we can see what a war would look like.  The U.S. will have 'battle stars' in space orbiting certain longitudes.  These stations can control missile systems, and are a surveillance system.  The Japanese will build a secret base on the moon, and use it to launch asteroids toward the battle star.  These asteroids have secret jet packs that kick in at the last second and converge and destroy the battle star.  At that moment, the Japanese and Turks launch their missiles on Earth, taking out as many American targets as possible.  The U.S. is knocked out for awhile, while Japanese take targets in Asia, and Turkey moves into Eastern Europe.  There is a ground war in Poland, as U.S. and Polish forces try to hold off the Turks.  In 2050, soldiers will be like Iron Man, but their suits will need to run on electricity.  Eventually, the U.S.'s strong production will complete another battle star and get it operational, and the U.S. can win the war and force Japan and Turkey to sue for peace. 

Friedman thinks the U.S. will then have another golden age, based on investments and innovations in space technology, much like investments in computers last century.  There will be a way to harness energy from solar radiation in space, and the U.S. will become an energy producer, not just consumer and extractor.  Friedman also predicts that by the end of the century the U.S. will butt heads against Mexico.  Mexico will become a major world economic power, and it will want to reclaim much of its lost land.  The borderland will become a territory that is mostly Mexican, and there will be lots of unrest and tension there.

This was a very interesting read, and one that made me think a lot about how I see the world.  Friedman constantly reminds us that the way the world works varies considerably year by year, so in 2000 things look differently than in 1980.  Standing in the year 1900, would we have been able to predict what 2000 would look like? No, but there would be trends you could see, such as the technological innovations in communication, transportation, and the growing power of Germany and Russia and the U.S.  It will be fascinating to see how much of this actually plays out in my lifetime.  Four out of five stars.

Women

Read from Saturday, March 5th to Sunday, March 6th.

Women, my second book from Charles Bukowski, was one dirty read from the classic dirty old man.  Henry Chinaski picks up where we left him at the end of Post Office.  But this time he is mildly successful.  He has published a few books of poems, and now he is starting to get famous.  And groupies.  This is not good, for Henry Chinaski (Bukowski's alter ego), has a weakness for two things, booze and women.  This story is not really a story, but more of a diary of his sexual escapades for the few years of his life while he was making it big.

Chinaski has been published, and he has many speaking engagements around the country to read his poems.  While he is famous, he is not rich yet, so he is obligated to do these speaking tours to stay afloat.  One by one, the women throw themselves at him, and he is powerless to resist.  Lydia is first, and she is pure crazy when she thinks that Henry is cheating on her, or when they have legitimately broken up and he moves on.  She smashes cars and breaks into his apartment, but he still loves her and goes back to her multiple times.  Tammie is a pill junkie that used to be a hooker.  But she is a redhead, and Chinaski can't seem to break free from her.  Finally, at one reading, he meets three women, and gets all their numbers.  One by one, he calls them, has sex with them, and hangs around until he gets bored, or there is a fight, and he goes out and calls the next.  The last one, Sara, owns a health food store, and it is her that he ultimately decides to be with when the novel ends.  

Of course along the way there are dozens more women.  Women write to him, and he invites them to come visit and stay with him.  There are multiple trips to the airport.  Also, the sex scenes are very graphic, and it is borderline pornographic at times.  Using all dirty language, he describes in detail how each woman is different from the others.  Their different styles, the size of their body parts, their legs.  Most of the time he can't even perform because he is too drunk.  Chinaski is constantly drinking. 

Eventually the women become too numerable, and he starts hurting some of them when they overlap. He has to cancel Thanksgiving plans with one because another is coming into town for sex.  This causes Chinaski to have a minor breakdown.  How can he have become such an incredible asshole, he wonders.  He tries to make it up to some of them, but there is not much he can do.  In the end, he realizes he wants to be with Sara, and the book ends with him turning down an invitation from a groupie so he can spend the night in with Sara.  I read later in a biography of Bukowski online, that this girl is who he eventually settled down with.

It was very entertaining to read about this kind of lifestyle.  While it may seem fun on the outside, Bukowski does a good job detailing how mentally draining it can become after awhile.  You cannot have any moral standards.  It reminds me a lot of the Showtime show Californication, because the main character Hank Moody is a sexaholic struggling writer in LA.  However, Hank has a family that he is trying desperately to get back to and settle down with. 

I really enjoyed Women, and I am very curious to check out some of his poetry now as well.  While graphic, it is also very funny at times, and he has some wonderful insights on women, booze, and why we do the things we do.  Four out of five stars.

My Mother She Killed Keith, My Father He Ate Keith

Read from Wednesday, March 2nd to Saturday, March 5th.

My Mother she Killed Me, My Father he Ate Me, a collection of forty new fairy tales, edited by Kate Bernheimer.  I was intrigued by the title of this book, and it was one of the first I added to my new Amazon wish list.  Including authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Aimee Bender, Neil Gaiman and John Updike, this book is a modern take on many classic fairy tales.  Each author takes a story and interprets it his or her own way.  Some of the stories are completely modern but with the same fairy tale lesson, and some of them are completely new stories in the same tone as the classics.  Some have magical elements, and some are just realistic.

It is grouped into stories by region, based on the original fairy tale it is based off of.  Starting in Russia, and then Germany with all the Grimm tales, and then Denmark with Hans Christian Anderson, France with Charles Perrault, Italy, England, Japan, Mexico and the United States with Snow White and Edgar Allen Poe.  What is most surprising about all these tales, and something that can be derived from the title, is that the stories are all very gruesome, violent, and unsettling.  The title comes from "The Brother and the Bird," which is a story about how the mother kills her son, and then uses his body in pies that she makes for the family.  The sister tries to bury her brother in the yard under the Juniper tree, and he eventually comes back in the end.  There are other really interesting stories, and my favorites are the ones with the more magical elements.  These are the ones in which the authors try to write new fairy tales, but ones that could fit in nicely in 18th century Europe.  They are simple, and tell the story of the protagonist and his adventures.

"The Warm Mouth" is pretty freaky.  It is about some roadkill, a dead girl and other discarded items that travel in a giant mouth and scare some criminal in a motel.  "Dapplegrim" is the story of a possessed horse that causes destruction and murder.  "The Mermaid in the Tree" takes place in a world where Mermaids live, and one comes on shore and a boy falls in love with her.  "Catskin" is really interesting, about a witch who is poisoned and leaves her revenge in the form of a cat, and there are all sorts of bodily transformations.  "Teague O'Kane and the Corpse" tells the story of a vain teenage boy who must carry a corpse to his grave before sun-up, and when he lies the corpse down, he sees that it is himself.  "I am Anjuhimeko," from Japan, is a story of a little girl that is buried in the sand for three years by her father, and then sent away from home.  She is tormented, and meets a witch, and it is all pretty crazy.

There are some good realistic stories as well.  "The Erlking" is about a mother and daughter at a medieval fair.  The mother is a normal helicopter parent, worrying over many things, and in the end a strange man beckons to the girl and takes her.  That was an unsettling story.  "Snow White, Rose Red" is about a man living in the woods who befriends two young girls and then almost kills their father when he beats his wife.  "Bluebeard in Ireland" is the story of an old man with his third, young wife on a vacation in Ireland.  She gets on his nerves and he contemplates leaving her.  "Ever After" is about seven dwarfs, or little people, that live and work together in a restaurant.  They have a copy of Snow White and they elevate the prospect of her return and saving them to a cult religion. 

Some of the stories are too long, and are more just modern day short stories, which can be boring.  The interesting, gruesome and mysterious stories were the ones that I really enjoyed.  On the whole, the book was pretty good, although I found myself rushing through one in order to get to the next.  I read it all over just a couple of days while on vacation in Chicago, my first trip to the city. It was a unique experience, and a fun read.  Three and a half out of four stars.

2666

Read from Tuesday, February 15th to Wednesday, March 2nd.

This is the epic, final novel 2666, by Roberto Bolano.   At almost 900 pages, this was the masterpiece that Bolano rushed to finish in the last years of his life before he died in 2004.  The book is divided into five parts, and Bolano originally intended them to be published separately, so that his descendants and publishers could support themselves better on the sales.  However, they were all published together, since they all relate to the same themes.  Overall, the book revolves around the hundreds of murders of young girls in Santa Teresa, Mexico, on the border with the U.S.  It is based on the actual murders of women in Juarez, and Santa Teresa is the fictional city.  All of the stories seem to revolve around these murders, and all the characters end up being drawn to Santa Teresa.  It is the center of the world.

The first part is about the critics.  Pelletier from Paris, Espinoza from Madrid, and Morini from Turin are three of the most prominent scholars on the recluse author Benno von Archimboldi, a German writer of the second half of the 20th century.  Norton is a woman from London, and she joins their literary crew.  All four are obsessed with Archimboldi, but no one has ever met him.  While writing papers and attending conferences about the author and others, Pelletier and Espinoza make moves on Norton, and a strange love triangle develops.  The men adore her and want her to make a decision, but she is unable.  They both share her off and on for years, while Morini has a small crisis while pondering an English artist's decision to cut off his hand in the name of art.  Eventually, their obsession with Archimboldi reaches a breaking point, and they receive a tip from a young scholar that he has been seen in Mexico going to Santa Teresa.  Pelletier, Espinoza and Norton travel to Santa Teresa in search of him.  They team up with Amalfitano, a local professor, and search hotels and libraries and other sources.  They learn about the murders, and the search peters out, and they get sucked into the city.  Espinoza dates a local girl, and Pelletier spends all his time re-reading Archimboldi, and Norton leaves Mexico in a panic, back to Europe.  She writes that she realized who she really wanted was Morini all along.  Pelletier and Espinoza realize that that is the closest they will come to finding Archimboldi, and that is the ending of that part. 

Each of these parts is like a small story in itself.  The second part is about Amalfitano.  It starts in Spain years earlier when he was married to a woman named Lola and they had a young daughter, Rosa.  Lola went crazy and ran off to find a poet she was in love with.  The poet was in an insane asylum, and Lola watched him from behind the fence.  She still wrote letters to Amalfitano, and eventually she became destitute and moved to France, where she died of Aids.  Amalfitano took a position at the University in Santa Teresa, but he slowly lost his mind as well.  He heard a voice in his head, and had conversations with this ghost.  In one of the memorable symbols, he hung a geometry book out on the clothesline to study the effect of the weather on the book.  He was afraid for Rosa growing up in Santa Teresa, afraid of the murderers. 

The third part is about Fate.  Oscar Fate is a black reporter for a magazine in New York.  His mother just passed away, and he accepted a story in Detroit about a former Black Panther leader.  However, once he finished that story, the magazine sent him to Santa Teresa to cover a boxing match, since the sports writer also just died.  Fate tries his best to cover the fight, getting involved in the training, talking with other reporters from Santa Teresa.  He of course learns about all the murders, befriending a reporter from Mexico City who is scared to meet the supposed killer they have behind bars.  She wants Fate to come with her to the prison.  Fate also becomes friends with a Santa Teresa reporter named Chuco Flores.  They go to the fight together, and Chuco's girlfriend is Rosa Amalfitano.  After the fight and a drunken evening, Fate has fallen in love with Rosa, and he tries to find her and steal her away from Chuco.  She runs away with Fate, saying that Chuco was involved in some rough stuff.  They go back to her house, and Amalfitano wants her to leave with Fate, giving her his savings so she can escape to Europe.  All those guys are mixed up the murders somehow, Amalfitano explains.  They leave Mexico, but first stop at the prison with the Mexican City reporter.  The supposed killer, Klaus Haas, is a tall German who speaks sadistically of a giant coming toward him, and who is going to make it all right.

The fourth part is about the murders, and it is the longest and most emotionally draining section of literature I've ever read.  It describes, in exquisite detail, the police investigation of the Santa Teresa murders.  Beginning in the early 1990's, there are a few murders each month.  Girls between 10 and 30 (typically), are found murdered and left in the desert or a dump on the outskirts of the city.  Usually, the girls are workers at a maquiladora, one of the many sweatshops in town.  They are usually beaten and raped, and eventually strangled to death and found with no clothes on.  Some of the cases are clear, like it was an angry husband who confessed, although the vast majority of cases go unsolved.  Each murder is described, with the name of the victim, the cause of death, the location, the date, and the status of the police investigation.  They are inter-spliced with the story of the overall investigation.  Inspector Juan de Dios is in love with an older pyschiatrist, and young Lalo Cura is new to the force from a rural town.  Some detectives, like Epifanio, are jaded and ruthless.  The murders are systematic. Midway though, they arrest Klaus Haas, who owned an electronics store and was a German and U.S. citizen.  He had had contact with one of the victims, and they pinned many murders on him, although the case is weak and he is stuck in jail for the rest of the book.  There are stories of reporters that try to uncover details.  A congresswoman hires a private detective to investigate the death of her friend.  Depressingly, nothing is resolved and nobody is held accountable.  All evidence points to a giant, system-wide problem among the drug cartels, the youth gangs, and corruption in government.

The fifth and final part returns to the story of Archimboldi.  Born Hans Reiter in Germany in 1920, he used to love exploring underwater.  He was very tall and lanky and introspective.  He worked cleaning with his family for a rich estate.  He befriended the young nephew, Halder, and they moved to Berlin and stayed friends there.  Then he was drafted and fought for the Nazis on the Eastern Front.  He was very brave because he does not fear death.  Reiter at one point discovers a journal in Ukraine of a Jew who was caught between the Communist purges and the Nazi advances.  Reiter is not an evil Nazi, he is just going with the situation presented before him.  He is not a fighter, but just accepts things as they are.  After the war, he works as a bouncer in Cologne and marries a crazy girl he met during the war.  He writes a book, and tries to get it published.  Most houses won't accept it, but in Hamburg he finds someone who likes him and his work.  Mr. Bubis takes him under his wing, and Reiter changes his pen name to Benno von Archimboldi.  Bubis's wife is the niece of the rich Baron Hans used to work for.  They have an occasional affair throughout the years, as Archimboldi publishes more and more novels.  He is never very successful nor recognized, all the scholars and academics would pick up on him much later on in his career.  Finally, as an old man, he hears from his younger sister, who he hasn't seen in many years.  Her son, Klaus Haas, was arrested in Mexico for murder, and she needs his help.  Archimboldi travels to Santa Teresa, and he is that giant coming to make things right.

That is how the story finally ends.  There is no traditional ending, and so it seems even more like real life.  It is a novel that encompasses an entire era.  It goes from 1920's Germany to the Eastern Front, to modern Europe, America and finally to that black hole of Santa Teresa.  There are many side stories and anecdotes that I cannot do justice to.  It is fantastic, with prose like poetry, and it is also very dark and morbid.  It is a bleak view of humanity at many times, but you still hope for something better.  There are flashes of beauty throughout.   I wish Bolano could have survived longer so we could enjoy more of his work.  I read the Savage Detectives earlier this year, and that was amazing as well.  Highly recommend this book.  Five out of five stars.