El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City (Hardcover)
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Description
John Ross has been living in the old colonial quarter of Mexico City for the last three decades, a rebel journalist covering Mexico and the region from the bottom up. He is filled with a gnawing sense that his beloved Mexico City’s days as the most gargantuan, chaotic, crime-ridden, toxically contaminated urban stain in the western world are doomed, and the monster he has grown to know and love through a quarter century of reporting on its foibles and tragedies and blight will be globalized into one more McCity.
El Monstruo is a defense of place and the history of that place. No one has told the gritty, vibrant histories of this city of 23 million faceless souls from the ground up, listened to the stories of those who have not been crushed, deconstructed the Monstruo’s very monstrousness, and lived to tell its secrets. In El Monstruo, Ross now does.
About the Author
John Ross is a poet, freelance journalist, and activist currently residing in Mexico City. His articles have appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Nation, CounterPunch, Texas Observer, The Progressive, and La Jornada. His book Rebellion from the Roots won the American Book Award and his somewhat autobiographical memoir Murdered by Capitalism won the Upton Sinclair Award and was a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year.
Praise for El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City…
Truthdig
“An impassioned and melancholy history of Mexico’s most complex, boisterous, and exhilarating city.”
San Antonio Express-News
“Meticulously researched and imaginatively reported, "El Monstruo" is not your typical history book. No dry, crinkly prose here. As it does in Ross' journalism, Mexico erupts, like PopocatÈpetl, from the page.”
San Antonio Express-News
“Like having the world’s best guide show you around.”
The Indypendent
"Ross’ book is part people’s history, part Gonzo journalism, with a wry and humorous style."
Denver Post
“El Monstruo is a valentine to place and useful chronicle of an epoch that has seen Mexico’s people find their voice…Ross’ quarter-century as witness does us the invaluable service of putting events to come in a context to understand them.”
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
“Vividly impressionistic survey of a fascinating urban panorama, El Monstruo makes for addictive reading.”
Kirkus Reviews STARRED REVIEW
“Monstrously entertaining and tenderhearted…”
“…a brave, stirring love letter, cautionary tale and travelogue…”
Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of Slums
“From a window of the aging Hotel Isabel, where he has lived for almost a quarter of a century, John Ross sings a lusty corrido about a great, betrayed city and its extraordinary procession of rulers, lovers and magicians.”
Iain Sinclair, author of Lights Out for the Territory and London Orbital
“Coruscating and necessary. Here is one of those rare books that convinces from the first sentence: a writer embedded in his writing, wholly present in the subject, leading us with savage grace to the heart of the beast.”
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
"John Ross is uncompromising in his dedication to the poor, the downtrodden and the victims of empire. He is not welcome on the television talk show circuit frequented by journalistic elites and political players, nor is he invited to the cocktail parties of the rich and powerful. He is most at home among the people in the slums and barrios of the world. John Ross is the personification of the peoples' reporter, a troubadour for justice who has chosen to cast his lot of conscience with those who have the will to live and the heart to resist against all odds. Simply put, John Ross is the Robin Hood of journalism."
