June 14, 2010

Book 33: Marching Powder

Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail
Rusty Young

An admitted drug trafficker may not seem like the kind of character one would expect to feel great sympathy for, but that is just the beginning of the vast weirdness explored in Marching Powder and is, indeed, one of the book's most normal aspects. The book chronicles the experiences of Thomas McFadden, an English cocaine trafficker who had the misfortune to be caught in the act in Bolivia, tracing the path from his ill-fated endeavor to his release from the bizarre world of La Paz's San Pedro Prison. Though there is nothing earth-shattering in this well-written, straightforward account, it provides a series of linked anecdotes that together draw readers into the alternate reality within San Pedro, which includes a surprisingly robust economy and a thriving cocaine business. Young is not out to shock with traditional hard-times prison stories, and Thomas is constructed as a likable guy, himself shocked at the conditions inside the prison and far from a hardened criminal. Told from Thomas's first-person point of view, the book charts his journey from jet-setting businessman to influential prison tour guide and presents San Pedro from a perplexed outsider's perspective. This allows readers to adjust to conditions alongside Thomas and to learn, as he does, the rules of this incarcerated life. Compelling and refusing to resort to familiar gross-out stereotypes, Marching Powder is an enthralling book successfully evokes and embeds the reader within an entirely foreign, but surprisingly familiar, world.

Grade: A

No comments: