Along the Border Lies

A ZYZZYVA first novel by Paul S. Flores

2003 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles National Literary Award 

Alfredo is a confused teenager from Chula Vista who forms a vigilante group to assault immigrants; Miranda is a Tijuana socialite and single mother involved with a powerful drug cartel; Gabe is an ex-con, his father a Border Patrol agent; Edgar is a Chicano painter. Theirs' is the ultimate bicultural story, and Flores tells it in all its racial and political complexity.

Partially based on autobiographical experience, Paul S. Flores’ Along the Border Lies looks at the northern and southern sides of the San Diego-Tijuana border region from a Chicano, postcolonial, postmodern perspective. 

The novel considers class, status, and national origin as factors determining how one relates to this place and the extent to which the border can be crossed in both directions. The chances people have on the U.S and Mexican sides, respectively.

Flores critiques the trans-border socio-economic interactions in the region in the context of the 90s anti-immigrant legislation in the United States. The narrative examines the militarization of the border, the freer circulation of goods, and the increase of drug consumption in the United States. In Flores’ book, the San Diego-Tijuana area is rendered a war and illegal trade zone that has a psychological impact upon its inhabitants and determines the power imbalances between people of Mexican and Mexican American origin who interact across borders. Overall, Along the Border Lies offers a critique of the spaces Mexicans and Mexican Americans call home and of the values of the communities inhabiting them.