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Defence attorney Jimmy Payne, once famous for getting justice for a group of illegal immigrants being screwed by the Immigration Department, is now a burnt-out case, still suffering from the after-effects of a tragic road accident that left him in physical and psychological pain. Taking refuge in Vicodin and white russians, he is wide open to being coerced by the LAPD into entrapping a bent judge into taking a bribe. When, predictably, the sting goes tragically wrong, Jimmy decides to leave both LA and the tatters of his career. But before he can get away, he is stopped by twelve-year-old Tino Perez, who first robs him and then asks for his help in finding his mother, from whom he was separated in the course of an illegal crossing into the United States from Mexico. Tino is a very tough kid, but touchingly vulnerable at the same time, devoted to his mother, and driven by childish fantasies of honour and manliness, fantasies that get him both into danger and out of it. For his own reasons, "Himmy," as Tino calls him, is taken with the boy and the pair embark on a wild adventure on both sides of the border to reunite the family. Drivers near the US/Mexican border will have seen the signs along the road - a man, a woman, and a little girl in full flight. The message is both clear and ambiguous. Motorists should watch out so as not to run down fleeing border crossers. But the signs are similar in style to those that warn of deer crossing and the desperate runners they depict seem almost to be another form of local wildlife. A few years ago, Paul Levine spotted a woman and her young son as they picked their way across a toxic river, headed north into California. It was a chance encounter, yet an image of the pair stayed with him, eventually becoming the Tino and Marisol of this book. Their passage across the border is truly hellish, filled with sexual predators, casual violence, danger, and death. Once illegally present California, they are still at the mercy of those who exploit their labour, finding the kind of work no one would willingly do if they had any choice. Nevertheless, talk-show hosts, one of whom is represented here, make an excellent living whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment, blaming them for taking American jobs and destroying American culture. It is an ugly stew, and Levine spares no detail. Though the book is an angry one, it is not a polemic. The characters are strong and memorable, if not wholly original, and, especially in the case of one of the nastiest of the lot, interestingly complex. It also offers the additional bonus to readers who perhaps have led more sheltered lives of an extensive lexicon of Spanish insults, curse words, and obscenities that could, I suppose, under certain circumstances come in quite handy. ILLEGAL is evidently the first in a planned series. I should also not be surprised to see it as a film. It manages to capture some of those elements of grandeur, anger, and dogged individualism that have long been the heart and soul of drama set in the American west and bring them into a thoroughly contemporary context.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, March 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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