Reading Mexico: Stories by Josh Barkan will make one think that Donald Trump’s demand for the border wall is justified. Mexico comes across in these 12 stories as a country of drug dealers and their mafia along with prostitutes and quite many people who resort to violence without too much provocation. The stories are set in the capital city where “To live ... you have to pretend there aren’t many dangers” [‘Everything else is going to be fine’]. Each of the twelve stories shocks us with a different variety of danger. In the very first one, ‘The Chef and El Chapo’, we meet “the most badass narco in the country” who is ushered into the Chef’s restaurant by a retinue of his AK-47 swinging guards for a uniquely tasty meal. The Chef is under duress to prepare that exquisite meal the type of which the Boss has not tasted so far. The reputation of the Chef is at stake. Worse, his life as well as those of the clients present in the restau...
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