"The Mexican village of San Patricio is being menaced by a bizarre, cultish drug cartel infamous for its brutality. As the townspeople try to defend themselves by forming a vigilante group, the Mexican army and police have their own ways of fighting back. Into this volatile mix of forces for good and evil (and sometimes both) steps an unlikely broker for peace: Timothy Riordan, an American missionary priest who must decide whether to betray his vows to stop the unspeakable violence and help the people he has pledged to ...
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"The Mexican village of San Patricio is being menaced by a bizarre, cultish drug cartel infamous for its brutality. As the townspeople try to defend themselves by forming a vigilante group, the Mexican army and police have their own ways of fighting back. Into this volatile mix of forces for good and evil (and sometimes both) steps an unlikely broker for peace: Timothy Riordan, an American missionary priest who must decide whether to betray his vows to stop the unspeakable violence and help the people he has pledged to protect"--Amazon.com.
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Philip Caputo's 2017 novel "Some Rise by Sin" examines a poor, rural Mexican community dominated by drug cartels together with broad questions of good and evil and religious faith. It is a broad novel with many insights both about Mexico and about the religious life.
The story is set in the Mexican village of San Patricio. Following the destruction of one large drug ring, a new cartel has arisen which goes by many names, most simply the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is cruel and violent with a macabre religious streak. It terrorizes the town and its environs. The residents consist mostly of poor farmers and villagers struggling in the best of times to get by. The Brotherhood dominates the drug trade in the vicinity but it has mysterious, smaller rivals. A unit of the Mexican army has been sent to combat the drug trade but it fights as well with a group of militiamen in the town whom it has tried to disarm. The book is full of characters with shifting, uncertain loyalties always ready for the double-cross and their own self-interest.
The central character in the novel is a middle-aged American Franciscan priest, Timothy Riordan who has served in the old village church of San Patricio for four years. A one-time college boxer and student of art history, Riordan rides a flashy but old Harley that the townspeople have named Negra Modelo after a Mexican beer. It is one of many suggestive nicknames for people and places in the book. A thoughtful, philosophical individual who has struggled with his vows and his faith, Riordan is gazing into the mysteries of the stars at the outset of the novel -- reminding me of the philosopher Immanuel Kant's wonder at "the starry heavens above, the moral law within." Riordan has been presiding over the funerals of many townspeople killed by the drug trade, including at the outset of the story, two young men who have been killed by apparently errant bullets from the army. Before his tenure in Mexico, Riordan had struggled with his vows by having an affair with a woman and by his efforts to protect a fellow Franciscan accused of sexual abuse of a minor. He continues to struggle with his personal faith in Mexico. Riordan also is deeply moved by the squalor of his parishoners' lives and by the sheer extent and viciousness of the drug trade. In many scenes of the book, Riordan reflects on the problem of evil. He worries deeply about how a good, loving, powerful God may permit the barbarity and the suffering he sees around him in Mexico. Among other sources for his thoughts, Riordan is a student of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, whom he mentions several times.
The second major character in the story is an American physician, Lizette. She was raised in a poor Appalachian community and struggled to earn her MD at age 45. Lizette has wanted her life to have some significance and devotes her practice by operating a clinic serving the poor of San Patricio. Lizette is romantically involved with another woman, Pamela, an artist and an academic born to a wealthy Philadelphia family who has come to stay with Lizette in Mexico to see where their relationship leads.
Caputo knows his subject well and gives a convincing portrayal of Mexico as caught in the drug trade. He evidences deep sympathy for the land and its poor. Caputo also has a strong sense for ambiguity and for the difficulties of sorting out good from evil in extreme situations. (I thought of Herman Melville and his short novel "Benito Cereno" as another instance of this ambiguity). Caputo describes a world replete with corruption, violence, and uncertainty.
With a journalist's eye for the facts of the drug trade, Caputo is at his best in this book in portraying the inner life of Riordan, in particular, and of his religious faith. Much of the story turns on Riordan serving as a "snitch" -- providing information to the Army and its highly suspect leaders -- in an effort to bring down the Brotherhood. Doubtless well-intentioned, Riordan's actions are morally and religiously highly suspect. Riordan also struggles mightily with the problem of evil in scenes that are well-done and compelling. Riordan's ambiguities and the broader ambiguities of the religious life are at the heart of this book. I found him a sympathetic figure. The book's portrayal of Lizette's medical practice and her conviction that it forms her life work also is convincing and, in her work and her relation to Riordan, adds a great deal to the book.
The problem with the book is that it is ponderous and in places badly organized. The many characters and scenes add to the realism of the story but at the same time slow it down. The book becomes slow and tedious to read. The affair between Lizette and Pamela while well-handled in itself seems to me over-emphasized, out of place, and also slows the book down.
I think this book will work best for readers interested in religious questions, which are poignantly and reflectively presented in the work. The depiction of the drug cartel and of the poor in Mexico is well and faithfully done but weakened by the novel's slow pace and writing style.
