Book Review: Poso del Mundo

May is No Place for Gringos Month !

Book Review: 'Poso del Mundo' by Ovid Demaris

3 / 5 Stars

Accompanied by the Consulate's protective officer, I visited the Tijuana jail.....the first thing to assault the senses is the odor, so overpoweringly noxious that one fears it will leave a stain on his clothing. It is not only the putrescence of human waste, of sewage and gases, but a reeking blend of this and ages of decomposition, the decay of people and buildings, of mold and sweat and rust and fear and rot, a marasmus of steel and concrete, bringing forth a mephitic growth with a life of its own.

'Poso del Mundo' (180 pp.) first was published by Little, Brown in Hardcover in 1970; this Pocket Books paperback edition was published in July, 1971.

Ovid Demaris (1919 – 1998) was a United Press correspondent and reporter who, during the 1970s and 1980s, wrote 14 nonfiction books, mostly on organized crime and the Mafia. 'The Last Mafioso', Demaris's 1980 account of the life and times of mobster Jimmy 'The Weasel' Frattiano, was a bestseller (in a March, 1981 article in the New York Times, Demaris stated: ''I'm making more money out of the mob than they're making''). 

Demaris's 1970 book 'America the Violent' is a very readable, if depressing, historical overview of violence in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

Demaris also wrote a large number of novels in the thriller and crime genres, including ‘The Lusting Drive’ (1958) and ‘The Extortioners’ (1960) for Fawcett's Gold Medal imprint. He wrote a series of books featuring the private detective Vince Slader. Many of these have been reissued as paperbacks and e-Books.

'Poso del Mundo', which loosely translates into 'Asshole of the World',  is something of a mix of investigative reporting and travel narrative. It's based on a tour Demaris made in the late 60s of the Mexican cities ('from Tijuana to Matamoros') adjoining the U.S. - Mexico border region.

At the best mancebia in Piedras Negras (it was bursting at the seams with ripsnorting Tejanos), I watched a floor show while cockroaches literally rained down on the table. After a while, convinced they were racing up my legs, I began stamping my feet to shake them loose and was congratulated by a table of ripsnorters for my enthusiasm.

The book's chapters examine brothels ('Cyprian Supermarkets'), the history of Tijuana ('Al Otro Lado'), Mexican police and prisons ('La Chicharra and the Little Monkey'), bribery as a way of life ('The Politics of Mordida'), cross-border smuggling ('El Contrabando', 'The Economics of Narcotics'), American gangsters at work and play in Tijuana ('Senor Tijuana is Gringo') and the futility of hoping or expecting that Mexico will change ('La Reforma Ultima').

Demaris of course realizes his Anglophone readers want things lurid and appalling, and for the most part, 'Poso del Mundo' obliges. The chapter on Mexican prisons and the hapless gringos incarcerated in them surely would have exerted a sobering effect on those Americanos contemplating travelling South of the Border, and remains relevant today. 

Then there are passages about gringo participation in some of the more clandestine features of life South of the Border:

For years the Paris Clinic, which recently went out of operation, was the biggest and classiest abortion mill in Tijuana. It provided a whole coterie of movie stars with well-publicized 'miscarriages.' The director, a leading surgeon, donated his morning hours to the local hospital; in the afternoon he tended to his private practice, and each evening he and his staff performed fifteen to thirty abortions in the basement of his home. 

Some chapters, such as 'Senor Tijuana is Gringo', belabor the intricacies of criminal machinations to an eye-glazing point of numbness, perhaps reflecting the author's desire to lend a note of journalistic authenticity to his voyeurism. These can make the book's 180 pages slow going at times, and are the reason I can't give it more than a three-star rating. 

Summing up, its lack of footnotes and sources limits the utility of 'Poso del Mundo' as a historical or sociological reference. However, it retains value as an observation of postwar Mexico  and a disquieting reminder that past efforts to 'improve' or 'reform' Mexico have been frequent, and patently unsuccessful. 'Poso' makes clear that the conditions showcased in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Sicario didn't spring up overnight, but were present long, long ago............