Crossing

Crossing, Manuel Luis Martinez, Bilingual Press, 1998

Sixteen-year-old Luis, restless and haunted by his father's death, leaves his Mexican village and heads north to make his fortune in America. He meets up with an unscrupulous coyote, who locks him and a dozen other men in a boxcar, with the promise of jobs in Texas.

Based on a true story, as the days become endless, and the water disappears in the heat, the men sink into delirium, madness and death. Luis befriends an old man named Berto, who is convinced that the devil himself has come to get him, because of a terrible secret in his past. Looking around at the situation in the boxcar, Luis thinks that Berto may not be kidding. As the other men die, Pablo, a ruthless leader determined to survive at all costs, seems to get stronger.

This is a very good, but quiet, psychological sort of novel. It does a fine job of showing why a person would undertake such a trip, and shows what can happen when people are trapped in an enclosed space. Well worth reading.