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The Friends of Pancho Villa

James Carlos Blake

Paperback | Pages: 274 pages

Rating: 4.06 | 172 Users | 19 Reviews

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Original Title:	Friends of pancho villa
ISBN:	0425162354 (ISBN13: 9780425162354)
Edition Language:	English

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I picked this one off my shelves last night. Rescued from somewhere. I wanted to pick a western and here it is, a first-person historical fiction tale. Our narrator is casual, relentless and remorseless killer working for "la Revolution" in the service of Pancho Villa. This is the second book about Villa I've read fairly recently, the first being something I can't remember by Winston Groom. Like that book, this one offers up a tossed-off version of what happened to Ambrose Bierce. It's just guessing at this point anyway. The most common theme of the book is the stunning violence. So many prisoners of war(on both sides) wind up being casually murdered. In real life, this became an issue for the American government, which generally supported the revolutionaries like Villa because the conservative governments of Mexico were so awful. Still, according to this Villa was entreated by American officials to go easy on captured soldiers, not that it did much good. Problem is/was that P.O.W.'s, if they are to be kept alive and NOT returned to resume their role as soldiers AGAINST their former captors, need to be fed and housed and guarded. All that takes resources(and the humanitarian will to do it) and Villa didn't have a lot of either. Anyway, more bloodshed tonight I suppose. So far this book is OK in its lightweight accounting of things, but the author/speaker is no Cormac McCarthy(who gets a shout-out in the form of an epigraph). NO doubt, however, that "Blood Meridian" has been the inspiration for a lot of the "realistic" westerns that have been written since it was published.

Last night's reading had a lot to do with politics. Villa and Zapata are about to enter Mexico City as co-victors over Carranza. It was all downhill from there for both of them. Both assassinated later on ...

Will finish tonight. Zapata got his, and now Villa will meet his maker. Oh, the treachery ... One might be tempted to some sympathy if either of them had been more than glorified bandits and killers. All that violence - ugh!

And so to the end of Pancho Villa. Our narrator speaks to us from 1968 - now that's a survivor! Villa enjoyed a fruitful, if rather brief, retirement. In the end his politics, big mouth, and obnoxious/violent personality got the better of him. As I said before, in my opinion he was primarily a gifted and charismatic bandito, the scope of whose activity was greatly expanded by the opportunities of "la Revolution."

- good but not great book - certainly not a work of legitimate = 3.5* rounds down to 3*.

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Title	:	The Friends of Pancho Villa
Author	:	James Carlos Blake
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 274 pages
Published	:	March 1st 1998 by Berkley (first published 1996)
Categories	:	Historical. Historical Fiction. Westerns. Fiction

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Ratings: 4.06 From 172 Users | 19 Reviews

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I picked up a paperback copy of FoPV at a silent auction in Cross Plains, Texas on the weekend of Howard Days (celebrating the legacy of two-fisted Texas writer Robert E Howard). What an apt setting to discover this blood-soaked tale of treachery, loyalty, guns, senoritas, and damn little mercy. I read it in almost a single setting, only exigent demands calling me away prevented me from finishing it at once. Rudy Fierro is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Or is he so reliable we just don't want

A meticulously researched and fabulously realized retelling of the life of Pancho Villa and his revolution through the eyes of Rudolpho Fierro, who might just be the most unabashedly violent character I've ever read. Rudy wins you over in the end through his unflinching honesty; he revels in slaughter and doesn't for a moment pretend otherwise. As he says late in the novel, "You don't fight to become free--to fight is to be free. A man with a gun and the will to use it can't be mastered, he can

Violent, gripping, well paced and an interesting window into Mexico during the same era as the US was facing entry into WWI. A good read.

A friend in need is friend indeed. I knew anout Villa and Zapata from school, the were like our Makhno, but in Mexico. So I knew what could I read - blood treason, brave and desperate fights and dead friends and all is lost. Well, not all is competely lost, General Villa is luckier.And Fierro is mean and uneducated and bloodthisty and rude but he never drunk all money or betrayed Villa. So I salute you both, jefes!

The pacing is a little off and I'm not a huge fan of antiheroes, but James Carlos Blake does a good job with historical/western fiction and this was an enjoyable, fairly quick read.

This is a rough and tumble western with lots of crass language although it gives the reader a fairly accurate insight into the mindset of Mexican Revolutionaries and their attitudes towards all sides (including the US).

Life's a bitch, then you die.That about sums up this book, and I am tempted to let my comments stop there. But....I will add a few more.Not for the faint of heart, this journey through blood soaked, raped punctuated, betrayal as normality, unacknowledged revenge as revolutionary fervor Mexico tells the tale of violent men waging war with only one real fear: that it will end. The story has a certain historical accuracy, enough to quality as history in a book as much as most text books.