PASSION FOR THE RIVER
Originally planned as a companion piece to the Rio
Grande Institute's still-in-the-works documentary about
the river for PBS, the anthology took on a life of its own once
the university press heard about it. "They didn't want
to wait," Reid explained "Even though this is an expensively
produced book, it's not anything like making a movie."
His passion for the subject is clear from glancing at the full
wall of bookshelves by the wooden kitchen table where we sat.
Many of the pieces in the anthology came from here, a collection
of Texas and Southwestern writing accumulated over many years.
"I had a pretty good start in my mind of who had written
about it," he said. As Reid traveled and searched elsewhere,
though, more and more possibilities appeared until he finally
had to stop.
"I kept saying, 'I promise this is the last one' -- because
it was just a matter of production," he said. "The
last one was really a coup -- (Mexican writer) Elena Poniatowska."
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
Reid is emphatic in saying that the book is not about the border
between the United States and Mexico, although that clearly
is a big part of the story, but rather about the river. A requirement
for including any piece or photograph was that the river had
to run through it in some way, shape or form. He also wrote
more than he had originally intended. "My text is sort
of a road map to the various sections," he said.
The sections are divided roughly geographically, starting with
"Rio del Norte" featuring New Mexico writers like
Tony Hillerman, to "La Frontera" and the Rio Grande
Valley, winding up with a short story from Oscar Casares' recent
collection, "Brownsville." Along the way are some
of my favorites, like excerpts from Dagoberto Gilb's El Paso
novel, "The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña"
and San Angelo Western writer Elmer Kelton's "The Time
it Never Rained."
While obtaining the rights to publish 35 writers and 15 photographers
wasn't simple, Reid said he was surprised by their enthusiasm
for the project. "I was astonished by how incredibly receptive
and easy all these people were," he said. "(Larry)
McMurty, the estate of Woody Guthrie -- all these incredible
writers."
TWO COUNTRIES, ONE RIVER
Reid set his own guidelines, leaning more toward contemporary
work than historical selections. He chose to leave out poetry,
except for an opening poem by Texan Christopher Cessac that
includes the line, "We have seen the devil and he is a
cartographer." Reid also limited photographs to black-and-white
ones, both for historical and aesthetic reasons. "The subtlety
and starkness of the river and terrain invites black-and-white
imagery," he wrote in the prologue.
"The Rio Grande's narrative is like the silt of its bottomlands
and delta -- a complex laying of many locales and traditions.
The river belongs to two countries, and as a consequence it
is protected and managed by neither," Reid wrote.
He traveled much of the river during his search for material
for the anthology and is confident that the end result -- not
a coffee-table book but one definitely meant for browsing and
reading -- is unique. "I think if there was anything like
this I would have encountered it, because I spent a couple of
years covered up in rivers," he said. "I made the
case that the river is really the start of the region's literature.
It's something that both countries share."
RIO BRAVO
Reid says he regrets that the volume doesn't include many Mexican
writers tackling the theme of the Rio Bravo. His search found
many Mexican movies about the river but not that much prose,
although he worked with writers Cecilia Ballí, a Brownsville
native, and Maria Eugenia Guerra from Laredo to make sure his
less than completely fluent Spanish would not be a barrier.
I speculated that there may be a difference between the regional
publishing options that exist in Texas and the Southwest compared
to the cultural dominance of Mexico City on the Mexican side.
"It's not like to be an American writer you've got to go
to New York anymore," Reid said.
I would doubt that a comparable situation exists for writers
in northern Mexico, who would be more likely to feel a pull
toward Mexico City. By now I'm completely intrigued by this
idea and hope that a column for Planeta
might produce a flood of suggestions of Mexican material that
could be incorporated into the second edition.
"It's going to stay in print," Reid said, happy to
have chosen a university press interested in the long haul instead
of a commercial publisher that might put it out for only a quick
ride. "They plan for it to be around a long time."
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