Vibrant 'Club' Links Mexico and United States in Award-Winning Book Monica Ortiz Uribe - NPR.org
go to original May 2, 2013

Author Benjamin Alire Saenz writes about life on the U.S.-Mexico border. Here he holds his latest book, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, in front of "$26," a painting by Francisco Delgado (the presidents in the painting appear on American bills worth a collective $26). (Mark Lambie/Courtesy El Paso Times)

Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Saenz Check it out on Amazon.com

On a Saturday night, the bridge that links downtown El Paso, Texas, to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico is hauntingly still. Once, this was a border crossing flush with life; now, after years of brutal drug violence, it's like a graveyard. It's certainly not the border that American author Benjamin Alire Saenz recalls from his high school days.

"We'd all pile in a couple of cars. There'd be like 10 of us and we'd come over to Juarez," Saenz remembers. "We'd go to all these places like The Cave, the Club Hawaii ... the Kentucky Club ... and we would just have a good time and laugh."

Ciudad Juarez is a sprawling city of more than a million people. It lies directly south of El Paso, like a muddled reflection off a mostly arid Rio Grande. For Saenz, this meeting place between the U.S. and Mexico is home. The border is more than just a place in his stories; it's a silent but ever-present character.

A few blocks south of that international bridge sits an old prohibition-era bar, a legendary spot that links together Saenz's latest collection of short stories. The book, which won this year's prestigious PEN/Faulkner award, is called Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club.

Read the rest at NPR.org

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!