Do you know what it’s like to be so excited about a story that you run to tell everyone you know about it? And in your excitement, you may repeat yourself a lot. Or you may tend to over-explain something that may be relatively obvious to others. Or perhaps, the story is so emotionally titillating that you relay it a bit out of order and in an incoherent manner at times. Or even worse, can you remember being so thrilled by your story that you even give away the ending first? Luis Alberto Urrea makes all of these mistakes in his zest to tell the story of the Yuma 14, the Mexican immigrants, who died in 2001 while attempting to cross the brutal Arizona desert in The Devil’s Highway.

Although delivered in a confusing and long-winded manner, author Urrea spends 220 pages describing the complex illegal immigration and border situation between the United States and Mexico through the story of the Wellton 26 (also known as the Yuma 14). Seeking to explain the multilayered, multifaceted elements of illegal immigration, Urrea, a reporter, presents a multitude of viewpoints and characters to reflect the complexity of the issue. From Border Patrol accounts to the walkers who braved the desert to the coyotes and guides who smuggled them across the border, Urrea haphazardly presents their stories, which are often left incomplete.

His kaleidoscope storytelling begs the reader to organize and assemble the facts and information on his or her own into a comprehensible and moving tale of the 14 economic migrants who died during their walk across the “Camino del Diablo” and the 12 others who narrowly escaped death.

Somewhere in Urrea’s attempt to provide a full picture of the tragedy of the Mexican immigrants who got lost in the Southwestern desert, he forgot that his readers understand the very meaning of the word “desert” – hot areas that receive very little precipitation. He repeatedly describes, and often over-describes, the Arizona desert and its harsh conditions. The only thing left for him to do was to provide additional maps throughout the book to correspond with the number of descriptions of the terrain. And yes, that would be overdoing it.

Regrettably, Urrea gave away the story ending at the beginning, which was one of the worst mistakes of the book. And in many respects, he took away the tension of the story. He must have mistakenly decided that to keep the reader guessing, he would need to arrange the story in some inconceivable, long and drawn out manner to keep them guessing as to what’s next. A few snippets on characters here. A quick vignette about the Border Patrol there. Or an inside look into the life of the guide, Mendez here. If so, his stringing along tactics did not succeed. Rather, they made the book easier to put down with the ending known, and no consecutive building upon one section or chapter over the over. Thus, the book’s organization did not make the reader want to uncover new clues to the main storyline. How could it? The plot was laid bare in chapter one.

Yet, despite the manner in which Urrea chose to tell the story of the Yuma 14, the book still manages to deliver on several accounts.

First, his sprinkling of character descriptions and backgrounds were vivid, humanizing and often a strange mix of sad and funny. Urrea made it easy for the reader to identify with several walkers who decided to essentially sell their souls for a ticket through the desert in hopes of buying their wife or mother a house.

And his writing begged for a sympathetic view of a man who lied to his wife or girlfriend about his whereabouts as he boarded the bus for his passage to the E.E.U.U. And his seemingly fair portrayal of Mendez, the guide, who somehow got mixed up in the illegal human smuggling business because he, like the walkers, wanted a better life calls for some degree of compassion. Urrea nails home the point repeatedly that whatever the cost, these Mexican men were so desperate for a better life for themselves and their families that they were willing to pay dearly with their lives.

And who could forget Urrea’s haunting description of the effects of extreme heat on the human body? His breakdown of the different stages of hyperthermia – heat stress, heat fatigue, heat syncope, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke – were powerful enough to make a cold man sweat.

To his credit, he also added a level of depth to the story behind “The Devil’s Highway” and its numerous deaths by painting a rich landscape of the desert – physically, historically and oddly enough spiritually (albeit over and over again). He cleverly wove in an element of the unknown by incorporating the spiritual folktales of the area. For it is a place where “Hail Mary’s don’t work” and “you need a new kind of prayers to negotiate with this land.”

Author Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway could have easily left out a minimum of 100 pages without diminishing the lives of the Yuma 14, or the complexity of illegal immigration and the border issues of past and present. Although this particular story is dreadfully tragic, the deaths and immigration challenges continue. His editor should have required the other 120 pages to posit a solution.

-The Caramel Bella

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