A Mexican Maze Without Borders

Critics' Praise for Marc Zimmerman and his Illusions of Memory Autofiction Series:

"A wonderful writer." Luis Alberto Urrea. author of Into the Beautiful North. "An incredible opus. A good writer indeed." Dick Goldberg, Playwright and screen writer, author of Family Business. "Keenly sensitive to ethno-communal borders." Roberto M?rquez, author of A World among these Islands. "I know of nothing like it in contemporary American fiction." John Beverley, author of Against Literature. "A writer with so many stories to tell." Carolina Rivera Escamilla, L.A.-based Salvadoran author of ...after. "Zimmerman ... offers us wonderful, imaginative and truthful stories." Marta E. S?nchez, author of Contemporary Chicana Poetry. "Some of the best stories fiction can provide." Antonio Zavala, author of Pale Yellow Moon.

From the Borderlands to Minneapolis, from Mexico City to Chicago, Houston, and other points north and south, this book tells stories of Marc Zimmerman's vulnerable, at times reckless and feckless protagonist Mel, as he encounters Mexicans, Chicanos and others-men, women, LGBTQ people, writers and lovers-who enrich his knowledge of Mexican worlds that are ultimately parts of an amazing borderless maze-a labyrinth "sin fronteras."

Two initial Mexican encounters, several Mexican and Chicano/a writers who come and go, a Chicano convict and maybe mafioso who has to go; five or six Minnesota Mar?as, a French-Mexican/Jewish mis-alliance, predatory trips through Baja, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Jalisco and Acapulco, a Mexico City love affair throttled by personal insecurity and economic collapse; many ways to lose Chicana and other hers in Chicago-plus a Mexican Molly Bloomish transexual who goes from whoring, drinking and drugging to the brink of bright monogamous motorcycling marriage, as well as an L.A. Ashkenazi mother finally mourned by her lost son during a noche de muertos in a Michoac?n cemetery. Among the writers portrayed are Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Carlos Monsiva?s, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rolando Hinojosa and unnamed others. All this and much more in a book roaming both sides of a bordered but borderless world.

Best known for his writings work on Central American, Mexican, Caribbean, Mexico, and U.S. Latino themes, Marc Zimmerman has written and edited over forty books. His "Illusions of Memory" autofiction series includes The Border TrilogyBlack, Brown and White on the Border, Sandino on the Border, this volume and this new volume and many others.