Why has it taken me three months to write my impressions of Martin Solares’ The Black Minutes?
I read it twice in one week in the middle of a northern mid-summer, and my partner read it recently in a southern late-summer. I took long walks after my readings; she lay on the couch, cried and missed hours of sleep. ..Yes, books often are powerful, and Solares’ is an emotional explosion, as he places police officials, government officials, business people, drug gang chiefs and functionaries, religious leaders, and the general population in southern Tamaulipas in the fictitious city of Paracuan more than thirty years ago – with the reality of the state and the neighboring state of Veracruz easy to see, with a river (Panuco), nearby mountains, farmland, urban sprawl, heat, humidity, rain, the Gulf of Mexico, the area near Reynosa, Matamoros and San Fernando and traffic among the backdrops.
Perhaps I didn’t want to be reminded of more than 400 pages of corruption that leaves many dead, thousands compromised, millions silent, adrift …. But I am determined to write about the novel, perhaps to encourage readers to think, and consider how dishonesty can become a good part of a nation’s norm, and, to take the harsh lessons of the past to guide us to a new and better path ….
The Black Minutes was published in its English translation this year, and in Spanish several years before. Solares wisely chose the 1970s, with forays into the early 1990s, instead of focusing on the Mexico of today for his book’s impact is greater as most readers will say, “So this is how Mexico got to where it is now, with the corruption really taking off in the late 1970s.”
Consider some moments:
- An investigative reporter is killed after learning that government, religious and police officials have protected a child killer, the killer being linked to a union leader.
- An innocent man lingers in jail, falsely accused of the one of the children’s deaths.
- Two honest detectives in Paracuan are driven from their posts, as they know that many layers of corruption are protecting the killer.
- One detective is left for dead, he who investigated the first child’s murder in the 1970s, and the other’s future is in doubt, with advancement promised as a buy-off, but his death near as he knows the truth.
- One honest policeman is killed, and another is blinded by lackeys from those layers of corruption.
- A priest knows all, says little.
- The local American bottling company official floats above the violence.
(- With a brilliant touch of magic realism, B. Traven, Rigo Tovar, and world movie personalities appear, then, leave.)
- A private detective retreats from the evil that marks the imaginary Paracuan, The actual Tamaulipas, Veracruz and the capital, Mexico City.
- Reporters know of the lies, photographers do, too, and they dabble in the truth, and are then silent.
- Eager young policemen enter the force, and soon, if they do not leave early, become as corrupt as the veterans.
Do those moments sound familiar?
The Mexican news, even under wraps thanks to fear, intimidation, sometimes has such stories. Mexican contemporary fiction, with scant exceptions, avoid the these stories. Not Solares.
Solares should read better in the original Spanish, as it was written in his native language. Spanish or English, The Black Minutes conveys the horror, evil, theft and venality, with moments of honesty, genuine love, decency and hope on the edges of the overriding hopelessness. If Solares had set the book in Mexico 2010, perhaps the lack of hope would be over the top…
Choose the language you prefer for reading before embarking on his gruesome tour that has now advanced to a level the characters, honorable and criminal, could never have imagined in the late 1970s.
Two remarkable portions of The Black Minutes’ hundreds:
“Everybody’s come to agreement: the government agrees, the president agrees, they made their agreement over the girls’ dead bodies. As happens everywhere, the city grows around its tombs.”
An honest policeman explains that justice will not be served. As I typed that phrase, goose-bumps covered my arms, and I started to sweat.
And: “We moved from knives to pistols, then to machine guns, then to kidnappings, and massacres.” The private detective gives up, bows to reality, in a telling comment. I did not get goose-bumps after typing that phrase. I simply said to myself, “True and sad.” Solares has a list of characters with their function and nicknames in the front of the book. Buy a copy so you can check them off as they appear.
South Texans and northern Mexicans should form reading groups and discuss The Black Minutes, read portions aloud, note the details that firm the novel and are certain to torment anyone with a conscience that rails at injustice and wants a new Mexico.
NY Times’ Excerpt from the Black Minutes
Get a copy here
