Grappling with the border
Mesha Maren toiled to strike the right tone in ‘Perpetual West,’ which is part character study, part thriller, part think piece
Elana and Alex are caught in the currents. The young couple have traveled from Virginia to the border towns of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, for school, but mostly to find themselves. Elana is preoccupied with her own autonomy even as she has passively let her husband make most decisions for her. Alex, born in Mexico but adopted by Americans, is focused on understanding his true identity, even as he keeps deep secrets about himself from his wife.
Mesha Maren’s sophomore novel, “Perpetual West,” follows these seekers as they befriend a diverse group of young Mexicans, most notably Mateo, an upand-coming lucha libre wrestler whose compromises will have dangerous repercussions, and Vivi, a wealthy artist who, unlike her comrades in arms, has the luxury of retreating to a family mansion.
As Elana and Alex get swept away and their lives start floundering, the novel takes the shape and pace of a thriller. Yet it’s a character-driven book filled with political and cultural ideas and debates about life along the border, ranging from NAFTA to the colonialist stereotypes perpetuated by writers like Graham Greene and D.H. Lawrence. One character argues that Mexicans who head to America are betraying their country, while another says they resemble American frontiersmen, whose bravery and sacrifices were heralded when they headed west two centuries ago.
Maren, whose first novel, “Sugar Run,” revolved around her native West Virginia, spoke recently by video about how her self-doubt about being an American writing about Mexico made for a better book.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q
You spent time in Mexico in 2005, when the book is set. How did your time there inspire the book?
A
I moved there because I’d fallen in love with a woman who was doing a study abroad program in Juarez. I just went to be near her, but I fell in love with the area because it reminded me of where I grew up in West Virginia. That totally surprised me.
On the surface they look very different, but both have this love of a place that’s difficult to live in and to love — they’re places where you get asked, “Why would you live there?” but the love is so strong and so deep.
There’s also a similarity in that there’s both extraction in terms of minerals and mining and of human labor.
The woman I went to be near had a friend she was really excited to introduce me to, a punk activist who was also training to be a wrestler. I realized pretty quickly she was interested in him in a romantic way. I was heartbroken, but while I was there I learned so much about myself and about politics and the relationship of the United States to Mexico — these personal moments were mixed up with these big political awakening moments and I knew I wanted to write about it.
I tried to write about it as nonfiction but it didn’t come out right, so I wrote “Sugar Run” and then came back and started thinking about it in terms of a novel.
Q
Wrestling is a major part of the novel; did that derive from that guy you were introduced to in 2005?
A
On a whim, I looked him up and he’s now a fairly famous wrestler. He remembered me and invited me out. And that’s when wrestling started to take up a larger role in the book. I shadowed him, watching him train and prepare.
Q You took lessons, too?
A
After I returned and was writing, I felt I needed the physical experience — I didn’t know what it felt like to stand in the ring or what the ropes felt like in your hands. I attended a wrestling school in North Carolina. I’m not very good. I was told I was going to get a concussion and not be able to write my novel, so then I just observed. But I still got the feel for it.
Q
The book is filled with ideas and debates about culture and politics. But it is characterdriven and yet is also paced like a thriller. How did you balance all that?
A
That was one of the main challenges. I think about plot last. I’m very visual and start with images, like one of two young people arriving at the border. Out of those images comes characters. The book shifts between Elana, Alex and Mateo chapters, but I would write all the chapters for one character in a row so I could spend an extended period of time with each. My first two or three drafts focus on them, and the plot is the least interesting thing for me — it’s what changes the most.
Q
One character is questioned about being an American writing Americans. Were you comfortable writing about American characters interacting with Mexican characters and politics?
A
Doubt was a big motivator for me. I worried maybe I wasn’t going to do it right. That pushed me to look closer and dig deeper. Throughout the writing I came to realize that feeling confident and comfortable are not the best things for writing. It feels nice, but doubt and unease made me go back over passages and ask myself deeper questions.
The research — reading books, watching movies, going to Juarez and Mexico City — was the easy part of it. You can find the facts. But the harder part was feeling like I was representing the place and people I was writing about in a credible and appropriate way.