This is a well written, honest and frank memoir of life on the Mexican/American border as an agent with border control It is very hard to read at times but it describes clearly the difficulties involved in the present day political subject of illegal immigrants.. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Didn't get round to finishing this, subject matter very harrowing though. Compelling start (read first four chapters or so) but found it upsetting. Good read though

Two sides to many things, coins, stories, borders, and in this case USA and Mexico on either side of a border, each with their own Border Patrol Enforcements. There are two sides to this story, two voices who could tell this story, the one of the civilian passing the border, be man woman or child, legally or illegally, whatever the terrible circumstances, wether fleeing from desperate situation, poverty, death, and violence, they find that they need to cross, they do have a tale to tell.
There is the tale of the one enforcing the to and fro through the border, and researching the border proximities, of which we have here, you have his story.
His observations and his retelling of the people he encounters and their tragedies. This is not a work of non-fiction that deals with the politics of to have a border or not, or how to patrol it, he tells what partakes across this desolate unforgiving terrain, in the heat, in the dark of the night, and from the courtroom and ones plight and reasons, the country they migrate to and from, of its economic status, and histories of violence, psychology and complexities of the many layered out in this narrative with brevity, leaving some space for the reader to think, not overwhelming but all vivid, throughly  researched, informative, stark and heart rendering battle of souls for better lives caught in web of inequalities and violence.
Whilst observing a prairie falcon on a tv monitor, in comforts and secure working indoors, away from the chaos, he has a moment where he feels something, one that is in conflict with that what he and his mother in the beginnings spoke of, before he set out to become a border patrol man, may become true, the chaos, the desperation, the dead and tragedy, he may become numb and desensitised. He wrote, “What cowardice has caused you to retreat from the desert? Why not return to the border’s smoldering edges, why not inhabit the quiet chaos churning in your mind?
I took several steps toward the screen, as if to reach the bird. I’m afraid to come any closer, I wanted to whisper. I’m afraid the violence will no longer shake me.” The border patrol man was experienced now later on his road, had seen many things, many troubles bearing upon his soul, and he didn’t want to forget who he was, where he came from, and what he original set out to do, something weighty on his heart, at battle with self, with all the myriad of souls faces etched upon his mind.
With all that is laid out before you in words in this work, what it must do is make one think of the many souls struggles and plight, instilling empathy for them, with all the world spilt in two with hate and avarice, these writings and readings can evoke within the reader this.

I enjoyed reading this book as it was interesting to gain an insight into the thoughts and emotions of an American Border Patrol worker and how/why they eventually left that position. It wasn't the easiest read but it was engaging for the most part and given the way America is at the moment, it felt like something worth reading in order to gain a better understanding of the situation.

At times I did find the writing style a little hard to follow and that lead to it taking longer to read than a book of this length normally would. It comes across as a book written more from memory than from diaries or journals as most memoirs feel. Maybe that is what gives it such a unique style.

The author talks about his life as a Border Patrol agent for the larger part of the book, but the last third or so has a drastic change. He can no longer cope with the sights and situations encountered during the course of his duties and eventually leaves the Border Patrol. During his later employment Cantu befriends an illegal immigrant and sees things from the other side. For me, this is where the book became more interesting.

I do think that this is a book worth reading, particularly if you favour non-fiction.

The Line Becomes a River is an interesting memoir into a subject that I knew little about prior to reading this. I found some the factual parts a little boring but Francis's actual story was emotive to read. I do feel I would have got more out of this book if I have listened to it as an audiobook but that's more a general thing for me and memoirs. I enjoyed learning about Francis's journey although I felt that the book did just stop rather than come to a natural conclusion.

If you have been following the atrocious treatment of Mexican immigrants in Trump’s America like I have during my very recent US visit, “The Line becomes a river “ is a revealing story told from the realities of a former border control official and the cost to their own soul. The separation of children from their parents when crossing the US illegally shook the US, uniting many Republicans and Democrats. One can only imagine what some officials went through psychologically when told to apply this order knowing what damage it would inflict to the children in particular.

Francisco Cantu served as an agent for the United States Border Patrol from 2008 – 2012 working in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, classic border countries with a history of Mexican immigrants. He is a third generation Mexican-American himself and despite his mother’s warning what such a job might do to his psyche and soul, he felt he was up to the daily challenges of working the border. Cantu describes the daily patrols, the politics, the plight of those caught, and the tight knit community of border agents. His language is honest and beautiful as he unashamedly writes about his conflicts. When empathy for those crossing the border overshadows his sense of duty and he starts to have nightmares, Francisco knows he has to act deciding to leave the patrol for civilian life.

He begins working in a coffee shop for a start and befriends Jose, an illegal immigrant of many years who has a family and works nearby. As Jose shares his lunch with Francisco, a warm friendship develops between the immigrant and the former border control man. When Jose travels back to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return Cantu discovers that he is being held by the border patrol as he could only reenter the US illegally. With clarity and compassion Cantu describes what happens once he gets himself involved in Jose’s and his family’s case trying to unite him with his boys in the US who are US citizens. It is a heartbreaking story at times.

I found this great book very enlightening and uplifting despite it’s sometimes very sobering events describing the human cost on both sides. Cantu is now an award winning writer and a former Fulbright fellow.

I was disappointed in this book. It didn't format well on my Kindle but to be honest, that was by-the-by. I found the writing disjointed and hard to follow at times. It succeeded as neither a memoir nor as a critique of border history or policy. It was simply not in-depth enough to provide a satisfactory example of either.
The subject matter was extremely interesting but the scope was too shallow.

Francisco Cantú was a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona and Texas for four years. Agents tracked illegals using the same skills with which hunters stalk their prey. Once captured, the would-be immigrants were detained, processed and deported. Days in the field were full of smuggled drugs, cached belongings and corpses of those who’d tried to cross in inhospitable conditions. Even when Cantú was transferred to a desk job, he couldn’t escape news of Mexican drug cartels and ritual mutilation of traitors’ corpses. Dreams of wolves and of his teeth breaking and falling out revealed that this was a more stressful career than he ever realized. Cantú worried that he was becoming inured to the violence he encountered daily – was he using his position “as a tool for destruction or as one of safekeeping”?

Impressionistic rather than journalistic, the book is a loosely thematic scrapbook that uses no speech marks, so macho banter with colleagues blends into introspection, memories and stories. Cantú inserts snippets of U.S.–Mexico history, including the establishment of the border, and quotes from and discusses other primary and secondary texts. He also adds in fragments of his family’s history: His ancestors left Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s, but there’s no doubt his Latino name and features made him a friendly face for illegal immigrants. He was often called upon to translate for those in custody. I felt that even if the overall policy was problematic, it was good to have someone compassionate in his job.

The final third of the book represents a change of gears: Cantú left law enforcement to be a Fulbright scholar and then embarked on an MFA in creative writing at the University of Arizona. During those years of study he worked as a barista at a food court and every day he chatted and shared food with another worker, José Martínez from Oaxaca. When José went back to Mexico to visit his dying mother and settle her estate, he was refused reentry to the United States for not having the proper papers. Cantú drew on his contacts in Border Patrol to find out when José’s hearing would be, helped his wife to gather character witness letters, and took José’s sons to visit him in the detention center during his continuance and civil trial. There’s a particularly wrenching recreated monologue from José himself.

It is as if, for the first time, Cantú could see the human scale of U.S. immigration policy, what his mother, a former national park ranger, had described as “an institution with little regard for people.” No longer could he be blasé about the way things are. It was also, he recognized, an attempt to atone for the heartless deportations he had conducted as a Border agent. “All these years,” he said to his mother, “it’s like I’ve been circling beneath a giant, my gaze fixed upon its foot resting at the ground. But now, I said, it’s like I’m starting to crane my head upward, like I’m finally seeing the thing that crushes.” As he quotes from Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder, “It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people.” That’s just what this remarkable memoir does. In giving faces to an abstract struggle, it passionately argues that people should not be divided by walls but united in common humanity.

Reminiscent of the best of recent war memoirs by a crop of new young writers. Should be on the reading list of anyone wanting to understand the border debate better.

I couldn't really get into this story. I didn't identify with any of the characters and it is not a subject in which I am particularly interested. Also the fact that the book didn't digitalise very well and I had to keep ignoring random numbers all over the page, didn't help.

This is very different to anything I have read before, yet it is extremely timely and important. Often heartbreaking and shocking, it shows the true cost of crossing borders.

A memoir written by a patrol officer manning the Mexico/US border. This is a frankly written memoir about how the job of patrol officer can both wear you down as a human being and lead to nightmares and mental trauma. Francisco, in a series of anecdotes, shows the terrible unfairness that closed borders create. He and many of his co-officers are human first and police second but nonetheless have a job to do. The backstory to many of the "illegal" crossers are grim and make their desperate efforts fully understandable but invariably they get caught and sent back only to try again. It is wearing to read but clearly so much worse to be the officer physically carrying out this task every day. Franciscu clearly feels this and gets a posting, away from the front line, into electronic surveillance. But even this becomes too stressful and he opts out to run a simple coffee shop only to find a close friend - an illegal Mexican immigrant of 30 years standing with a wife and 2 kids - gets into trouble when he crosses back into Mexico for his mother's funeral. Basically, he finds he can't get back into the America and the system beats him. Of course there is justification in having a frontier but this book argues a strong case for controlled immigration as otherwise all involved suffer the consequences

A brilliant must-read about the complications and inhumanity of attempting to cross borders

This book is absolutely a must-read because it manages to provoke reflection and mindfulness of the inhumanity created by borders. It took me a while to get the gist of the story but, when I did, I could not put the book down.

Francisco, who is of Mexican descent, chooses to join the border patrol between Mexico and the United States, specifically to gain a personal insight into the devastation border crossing causes humanity. He patrols remote regions where he uncovers the reality of desert heat and dehydration followed by death or detention and deportation, seldom freedom. His experiences left him with nightmares that seem to debilitate him.

Francisco brings his mother, a park ranger, and her lineage into the book as well. It seems his relationship with her is badly affected by the inhumanity of his work in Border Patrol. Francisco also brings in the devastating experience one of his close friends has, trying to cross the border. There is also the reality of drug smuggling, human trafficking and a loss of humanity.

This book is sad and difficult to read because of the daily realities being death, detention or deportation. Yet, I highly recommend it as Francisco writes brilliantly from a very personal standpoint. I imagine his nightmares could never abate even with time.

BonnieK

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Line Becomes A River is a tricky book to talk about. On the one hand Cantú does a good job depicting the complexities of a border that is constantly changing on land that is imicable to even stone monuments but on the other hand, he shys away from directly confronting his own complicity by talking about his teeth grinding and mother's disapproval. There's a hint of bluelivesmatter here in a way that doesn't sit well with the intended tone of his humanization of the crossers. The 2nd half, where he's a civilian fighting for his friend and then a section told by José, was better told and explored than his time in la migra/border patrol.

The e-galley of this has been formatted in such a way as to make it extremely difficult to read - each line is marked with a number in bright pink - so I haven't been able to finish reading it. This is a shame as it looks both excellent and timely, and I'll still be purchasing it for stock at the bookshop where I work, but the e-galley issue is a serious impediment.

The Mexican/US border is often in the news, not least because of Trump’s wish to build a wall along it, and this insightful and illuminating book is both timely and helpful. The author is a 32-year-old Mexican American who spent 4 years as an agent of the US Border Patrol, in pursuit of Mexicans, repatriating the ones he caught and frequently finding the dead bodies of those who perished in the inhospitable terrain. He joined the Patrol as he wanted to find out what the real situation was rather than merely study it academically, and in this aim he was successful, only for it to take a severe toll on his psychological health. In the end he had to quit.
What he does in this book is explore the history and causes of Mexican immigration and the US response to it, which he blames unequivocally for the humanitarian crisis he saw daily when on patrol. At least 6,000 people are known to have died attempting to cross this century alone, and the figure is probably much higher. He wants to make sense of this human tragedy for himself and the reader – these are not just statistics but real human beings. He’s honest about what it’s really like in law enforcement on the border and neither demonises nor excuses his colleagues. Some of them are as cruel as the “coyotes” who prey on the migrants they promise to help, and he doesn’t shy away from facing his own culpability. In spite of his increasing sympathy for these desperate people, his account is measured and balanced, and he doesn’t seem to have a political agenda nor is he judgemental. There are one or two ridiculous reviews stating that that he’s trying to justify the border agents, but I didn’t get this impression at all. It’s a personal exploration of a deeply complex issue and he tries to expose the current situation, to try to explain what makes these would-be immigrants so keen to cross, and demonstrates how the drug trade is responsible for so much of the violence they want to escape.
I found this and eye-opening and moving account. There don’t seem to be any easy answers, but I feel that this book will go a long way in clarifying what’s really going on and what it’s really like on the border.

I believe President Trump is not a great reader of books. That is a shame because I would certainly recommend this one to him.
Francisco Canto - names after Francis Patron Saint of animals - is a man who has seen dreadful things but still can look beyond them to the majestic beauty of nature against a back drop of human horror.
This is a tough read as he outlines the true violence of working as a Border Patrol agent along the Mexican border with the US. You remember that one a certain Presidential candidate suggested should have a wall. To be honest I am not sure even a wall Mr Trump will stop this inhumanity.
The Juarez Valley runs along the Rio Grande and Francis has already learnt from his mother - a Park Ranger in the area of the natural beauty that we have described to us as readers. Yet alongside fantastic descriptions of the flora and fauna - wolves, eagles, majestic terrain and cacti lie human dead bodies. For this is 'Murder Valley' which sees a body count and is names the deadliest place on earth.
Despite the dangers, the drug cartels, the smugglers and the border lines 'crossers' attempt to gain access from Mexico to the US everyday. Francisco after completing his training, attempts to pursue his occupation with compassion as a border agent. But what he sees haunts him. As a third generation Mexican- American he recalls , "The wild-lands were a place where I could understand myself" but though the beauty of the area is still there under the surface (literally in mass graves) are dead bodies piling up - tortured, naked, unrecognisable.
He has great respect amongst his colleagues. Is shattered when one friend is himself shot and moves to work in Intel in an office. But despite his promotion somehow is drawn back to the wilds and the deaths.
Just as there are ghost towns on these borders where brutal gangs rule and no-one walks the streets because of fear of kidnap or torture so places like Praxedis Guadlupe become the life, mind and nightmares of Francisco. In Praxedis there are no police. The last one was executed in 2009. Yet Francisco still continues his job of border law enforcement.
His experiences are highlighted with his need to understand why people kill. He explores psychology, criminal forensics, geneology. Even perhaps just what makes us inhuman.
But overall we must understand the need for immigrants to still want to make better lives for themselves. So often, and we now see it across the world, "The Alien becomes a Commodity." Why would you attempt to cross the Mexican border when all around is this violence, danger and often just a return back to a life you so desperately want to escape. Perhaps there is hope. Francisco sets out some glimpses for us. After reading this book Trump is least of their worries......

This is a timely and well written book. It deserves to be well read even if it might not be well liked. Cantu is a Border Guard but he is also an intelligent and educated man who tries to give the desperate Mexican people he polices a fair voice. Given the rhetoric in current American politics, the book puts a view that deserves recognition. These are human beings and they are not treated as such. The beginning of the book is quite slow as the author develops his motivation and explains his own views. I did struggle a bit here though I enjoyed his relationship with his Ranger mother and her struggles. The book really picks up in the second half and is recommended for anyone who wants to understand the complex politics of the Mexican/American border written by someone who lived it.

I was given a free copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Great book, kept me enthralled during each page. Hoping for more great rewards from this author

Build a wall! Build a wall! Build a wall!

Erm.... even as an English person with very little knowledge of US politics I know that's not a good idea. Fortunately, The Line Becomes a River really helped me to understand why.

The book is the real life account of a second generation Mexican American who goes to work for the Border Patrol Agency, stopping illegal immigration from Mexico to the US. As mentioned above I'm British with very little understanding of the situation, so I was totally unprepared for what I was about to read.

I'm not sure how much (unbiased) coverage immigration from Mexico gets in the US but I for one knew very little about it. All I'd seen is Donald Trump saying that Mexicans were rapists and drug dealers, and they were coming to America to expand their criminal operations. Naturally (like literally everything that is spewed forth from the mouth of The Donald) I'd assumed this was nonsense, but I had no concept of the reality. The Line Becomes a River really opened my eyes to what was going on, from the unique position of someone working to keep illegal immigrants out but who was also descended from the same cultural heritage.

I think the thing that struck me most about the entire immigration situation was the sheer danger of trying to cross the border illegally. I didn't really think about the terrain (mountainous desert), the temperatures (high enough to kill you within a few hours if you don't have adequate water/shade) or the sheer distance you would need to travel. I also knew nothing of the gangs who were utterly taking advantage of ordinary people by charging them ridiculous fees in exchange for smuggling them into the US - in other words, people trafficking - or the relationship between the gangs themselves and drugs, guns and other types of illegal activity.

What seemed utterly crazy to me was the deportation situation. Cantu describes immigrants who have lived and worked for thirty years in the US, paying taxes, marrying, having kids - who then get deported back to the country some of them haven't seen since they were children. I couldn't believe the rudimentary way that families were being ripped apart. Even looking from an economic perspective, the costs for deporting, say, the father of a family of four must be huge when you take into account the social, mental and monetary pressures that the remaining family members would be subjected to. That's not to mention the ethics of taking away a father, role model, care giver and often primary earner from a young family. For what? And all because the country of birth box on the individual's passport said "Mexico" and not "USA". Crazy.

Some of the stories detailed in the book were truly terrifying. There were tales of finding bodies in the desert which had been executed by gangs, groups of immigrants dumped by the people traffickers and left to die, babies who had not survived the crossing, children unable to see their parents because they had made it through but the rest of their family hadn't, kids visiting their dads in detention centres... there were so many people at risk and so many lives that were being destroyed.

I did appreciate that Cantu didn't offer his own political opinions on the situation, but instead relied on telling the stories of the people that he encountered without bias. This allowed me the freedom to make my own mind up about what was going on.

It seemed to me that instead of trying to target the individuals trying to enter the US, there should be a crackdown on the illegal gangs and people traffickers. I appreciate this is easier said than done, especially when they live in a country such as Mexico where it seems relatively easy to pay your way out of trouble, but it has to be a better idea than building a wall. Not only would the terrain prohibit the wall from actually being built, the physical difficulties of policing the bloody thing would surely make the entire enterprise cost prohibitive? Couldn't that money be put to better use?

Despite the shocking nature of the novel, I did struggle with the narrative flow. The first person perspective was interesting but Cantu obviously found his job very difficult, so the whole book was tinged with his own depression. It seemed to jump from one upsetting story to the next, with no hope and no solutions provided. I know that Cantu had to retain a professional distance from the people he encountered, but that lack of emotion in his writing really made the book quite lacklustre in places.

Overall, I'm glad that I read The Line Becomes a River as I feel much more aware of some of the issues that are happening on the border. However, the execution of turning these stories into a cohesive memoir could have been a lot better. In parts the book lacked pace and the writing often failed to grip me. Food for thought, but still quite disappointing.