The Magic Curtain : the Mexican-American Border in Fiction, Film, and Song /

Border-crossing between Mexico and the US has been a creative and historical topic for centuries, with themes of escape, adventure, risk, change, and picaresque or intercultural encounters. Dividing the 14 chapters into three parts--background, poetry, prose--Torrans (a former journalist) uses primarily 20th-century examples to examine such films (some adapted from literature) as Treasure of the Sierra Madre, El Mariachi/Desperado, and Traffic. The author then skillfully studies several corridos (ballads or song-poems), notably those dedicated to Gregorio Cortez and to migrant workers. The strong section on prose offers excellent summaries and analyses of works by writers including Will Comfort, Larry McMurtry, Frank Goodwyn, Walter Nordoff, Rolando Hinojosa, Glendon Swarthout, Carlos Fuentes, Cormac McCarthy, B. Traven, and Clifford Irving. This title joins Torrans's earlier work Forging the Tortilla Curtain (CH, Jun'01) and complements Sonia Saldivar-Hull's Feminism on the Border (CH, Oct'00). Magic Curtain suggests many ideas for further scholarly research, yet it is written in a conversational style that will appeal especially to beginning undergraduate and general readers. Recommended for all libraries. M. V. Ekstrom St. John Fisher College