Don Winslow

Don Winslow's The Border is a follow-up to his 2005 novel The Power of the Dog and 2015’s The Cartel. From the author's Southwest Review Q&A with William Boyle:

WB: Michael Connelly wrote this about The Cartel: “[It’s] a first-rate edge-of-your-seat thriller for sure, but it also continues Winslow’s incisive reporting on the dangers and intricacies of the world we live in. There is no higher mark for a storyteller than to both educate and entertain. With Winslow these aspects are entwined like strands of DNA.” I wonder what it’s like to work with that idea in your head, that you’re educating people, that you’re dealing with some people who are crime fiction fans who will be on board and some people who are smart who will know you’re getting it right, but then you’re also dealing with a whole host of people who are buying into falsehoods, maybe even believing that stuff in Sicario: Day of the Soldado is reality.

DW: I have to forget about all of that. I’m aware of all of it: My education is as a historian, and that’s the way I tackle these things. But then I have to remind myself I’m not writing history, I’m writing a novel. I’m writing what better be a good, exciting, interesting story, albeit with a lot of information. The way I view my job is that I’m supposed to bring people into a world they couldn’t otherwise enter. I’m their guide. When I’m writing, even though I’m aware of everything you just mentioned, dead-on, I have to throw all of that away. I’ve gotta be inhabiting the character’s mind, I’ve gotta be seeing the world through the character’s eyes. I won’t consider any of that stuff, period. Because then I’m writing polemics or history. The other thing is you have to avoid the...[read on]

Learn about Winslow's hero from outside literature.

--Marshal Zeringue