The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú

The Line Becomes a River

Dispatches From the Border

Francisco Cantú

Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · February 5, 2019

The instant New York Times bestseller, "A must-read for anyone who thinks 'build a wall' is the answer to anything." --Esquire For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest.

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Who it’s for
A practical, unsentimental border book with the texture of lived experience.
Genres
Personal Memoirs, Immigration & Emigration, Immigration Policy
Published
Penguin Publishing Group, February 5, 2019

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About this book

The instant New York Times bestseller, "A must-read for anyone who thinks 'build a wall' is the answer to anything." --Esquire For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantú joins the Border Patrol.

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He and his partners are posted to remote regions crisscrossed by drug routes and smuggling corridors, where they learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the whole story. Searing and unforgettable, The Line Becomes a River goes behind the headlines, making urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line

Border Dispatches

A practical, unsentimental border book with the texture of lived experience.

Come here for

  • Border-country reporting with a memoirist’s eye
  • Plainspoken, accessible prose

Expect

  • Biography shaped by place and policy
  • A straightforward, reflective read

Where it sits

Personal Memoirs80%
Immigration & Emigration49%
Immigration Policy45%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Cultural Heritage Lives
  • Personal Memoirs
  • Immigration Policy
Authors
Francisco Cantú
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published
February 5, 2019
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Cultural Heritage Lives