The Devil's Highway

From AwardAnnals

Book:	The Devil's Highway: A True Story
Author:	Luis Alberto Urrea
Honors:	2005 Kiriyama-Nonfiction finalist 2005 Pulitzer–Nonfiction finalist Score: 12.55
Genres:	Nonfiction books
Publisher:	Little, Brown

In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, a place called the Devil’s Highway. Twenty-six people—fathers and sons, brothers and strangers—entered a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it. For hundreds of years, men have tried to conquer this land, and for hundreds of years the desert has stolen their souls and swallowed their blood.

Along the Devil’s Highway, days are so hot that dead bodies naturally mummify almost immediately. And that May, twenty-six men went in. Twelve came back out.

Now, Luis Alberto Urrea tells the story of this modern Odyssey. He takes us back to the small towns and unpaved cities south of the border, where the poor fall prey to dreams of a better life and the sinister promises of smugglers. We meet the men who will decide to make the crossing along the Devil’s Highway and, on the other side of the border, the men who are ready to prevent them from reaching their destination. Urrea reveals exactly what happened when the twenty-six headed into the wasteland, and how they were brutally betrayed by the one man they had trusted most. And from that betrayal comes the Inferno, a descent into a world of cactus spines, labyrinths of sand, mountains shaped like the teeth of a shark, and a screaming sun so intense that even at midnight the temperature had only dropped to 97 degrees. And yet, the men would not give up.

The Devil’s Highway is a story of astonishing courage and strength, of an epic battle of men against circumstance. These twenty-six men would look the Devil in the eyes—and some of them would not blink. Spectacularly written, The Devil’s Highway is the great leap forward for one of America’s finest writers, a trip to hell and back that is not only an astonishing piece of investigative reporting but also a literary tour de force.

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