Everybody in Mexico knows the Mexican government and the Mexican military are involved in the drug trade, but proving it is difficult. “The result is certainly much more than a crime story: It is a mature, deeply felt exploration of the hidden connections binding two very different parts of North America, as well as of the ties that bind a family,” William Langewiesche wrote in a review in The New York Times. He was putting the pieces together slowly and carefully. As news of Bowden's death rippled out Sunday, loved ones and friends in Arizona's literary community recalled Bowden as a gifted and singular writer who was generous with his time and mentored younger colleagues. Among Mr. Bowden’s other books are “Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields” and “Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America,” which describes environmental destruction and social alienation in the West. He was a contributing editor of GQ and Mother Jones magazine,[3] and he wrote for other periodicals, including Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, High Country News, and Aperture. If people knew who I really am they wouldn’t like it.”. “Not on my watch,” he would always say, back then. © 2020 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Young boys joined the gangs knowing their lives would be short and violent, but also knowing that for a brief period they would have money and girls and cars and drugs — better than working like a slave in a maquiladora assembling televisions and vacuum cleaners to be sold in America — and they’d get to kill people, which made them feel real and alive like nothing they’d ever experienced. "He cooked dinner and it got very late; we drank copious amounts of red wine and I slept in the living room. Terms of Service apply. After one chapter I realize it’s a long poem, a song about being in a war. Bowden had been battling a recurring illness and died in his sleep, Carroll said. Reclaiming power from those who abuse it often starts with telling the truth. He curls up in the oxblood leather chair … … Our energy would simply prevail.”. "He was just trying to catch his second wind," Carroll said. I don’t know if it’s any good, I just know it about killed me and it’s the best I can do.”. It is a song. In “Desierto,” published in 1991, he described a region where “the days tumble together, the sun at noon annoys with light and flattens everything the eye sees into boredom,” and where “the ground boils with the goings of large ants, and every plant seems to rake the flesh with a lust for blood.”, In 1996, he wrote an article for Harper’s Magazine about devastating poverty, violence and gang life in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, across from El Paso. He’d done evil things, but he was not evil. It would be even more of a tragedy to politicize his death. Bowden spent more than a decade writing about the Mexican border city of Juárez, interviewing assassins and victims to illustrate the city's culture of violence. That’s what life is all about. It was during this period that I began taking 100 or 200 mile walks in the desert, far from any trails. [11], "Charles Bowden, Author With Unblinking Eye on Southwest, Dies at 69", "Charles Bowden dies at 69; author known for writing on border issues", "The endless search for Charles Bowden: A longtime Bowden reader remembers the complicated author through two new books", "Desert Blues: Charles Bowden's borderlands (review)", "Torch Song | Harper's Magazine - Part 2", Charles Bowden on “Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields”, NPR interview with Bowden about "Shadow in the City", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Bowden&oldid=982217732, American non-fiction environmental writers, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 October 2020, at 20:38. He kept investigating the drug trade. "What I will always remember him for, beyond his vast talent as a writer, is his generosity with younger writers, writers coming up," Valley resident and acclaimed Arizona journalist Terry Greene Sterling said. I want to go through that door and get in that room and sit at that table with that power and the wolf should be there, the elk also, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, the serpents and monsters of the deep, and this time when the waters come there will be no Noah and no rainbow, God help us, no rainbow. He’s been doing this wherever he lives, for decades. At that time, in the early ’70s, Bowden had a tenure-track position teaching history at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "He kept saying that he was proud of his ability to be a witness. In case you hadn’t noticed, debates about nutrition and health have started to resemble debates in the U.S. congress. Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. He was a contributing editor of GQ and Mother Jones magazine, and he wrote for other periodicals, including Harper's Magazine, The New York … Bats are dive-bombing bugs above our heads. He’s 69 years old, in fair shape from lifting weights and going on long walks, but he’s losing some teeth and is pretty much penniless. And if you think journalism like Mother Jones'—that calls it like it is, that will never acquiesce to power, that looks where others don't—can help guide us through this historic, high-stakes moment, and you're able to right now, please help us reach our $350,000 goal by October 31 with a donation today. They were Bowden’s early model, people who were willing to risk everything in order to be treated as equal human beings. Reporter Yihyun Jeong contributed to this article. Charles Bowden was an investigative journalist who spent much of his career delving into the world of drug cartels along the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2008, Juárez exploded in a wave of violence that lasted four years and left somewhere around 15,000 dead bodies. I ask him what kind of birds we’re looking at. In an interview with The Times in 1991, Mr. Bowden said he once made a publisher remove the word “environmentalist” from the dust jacket of one of his books. He completed work toward his doctorate there but walked out while defending his dissertation, frustrated with what he felt were uninformed questions from his review committee. Whatever Chuck Bowden did, he did with all his heart.". If he would have fought the whale in the beginning, he believes, his friend would still be alive. “Juárez,” he wrote, “is an exhibit of the fabled New World Order in which capital moves easily and labor is trapped by borders.”. © 2020 www.azcentral.com. There was no getting away from this part of our civilization, it spilled over into the wilderness, it was part of the wilderness. Bowden moved to Las Cruces from the Tucson area about five years ago, but had recently visited southern Arizona and was still deeply connected to the area, Carroll said. "The first week in August he went back to Las Cruces because he wasn't feeling well," he said. A longtime friend of Bowden's, Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll, confirmed his death Sunday. In 2010, Bowden was sitting in a restaurant with a man who happened to mention that he knew an assassin, a sicario, who had been a state policeman in charge of investigating kidnappings in Juárez, but instead he kidnapped, tortured and killed people for the cartel. In order to do it you have to get rid of yourself. Graham, citing Bowden's work on drug violence, echoed that sentiment: "He kept saying that he was proud of his ability to be a witness. "He would actually refer to a book or an article as a song," Graham said. Charles Bowden, an author and hard-boiled investigative journalist who often wrote about the American Southwest, died Saturday in Las Cruces, … I can’t see him but I know he’s lying on his back with his hand on a cup of red wine, looking up at the stars. He knows I understand the feeling and lets it sit for a moment with the crickets. "As a young man, he had valley fever, and I think that continued to plague him as he got older," Carroll, who began a friendship with Bowden in the late 1990s, said. He attended the University of Arizona and then the University of Wisconsin, where he obtained his master's degree in American intellectual history; while there he walked out as he was defending his dissertation for his doctorate, annoyed by the questions asked him by the review committee. Eventually, after a lot of arguing, his reports would get published and then be ignored, met with silence. The allegory fits. Charles Clyde Bowden (July 20, 1945 – August 30, 2014) was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico.[1]. "That was how he managed to be so prolific.". There was the baby’s blood splattered on the wall above the bathtub. There is no rule of law — policemen become killers, judges are paid to let people out of jail, reporters are paid to be silent. His possessions consist of a sleeping bag, a cot, a stove for coffee, a Honda Fit and a pair of Swarovski binoculars — high-quality glass. Listen on Apple Podcasts. The death toll is on track to be even higher in 2010, with more than [3,300] people killed in the first three months of this year alone. And then they would, in turn, get killed and it would be over, no more fear. He knows why I’ve come. He also contributed to Harper's Magazine and became an expert on the drug wars along the U.S.-Mexico border, reporting on the smuggling routes through Sasabe, Ariz., and Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. He curls up in the oxblood leather chair and … Our support in your time of need does not end after the funeral services. There he spent years reporting on gruesome crimes before he moved on to other investigative journalism, Graham said. I believe that words count, that writing matters, that poems, essays, and novels — in the long run — make a difference. Charles Phillip Bowden,63, passed away Monday April 13, 2020 in Dunn, North Carolina. When he won a 300-miler across the desert he thought he should buy a better bike, a Colnago, for $1,500. It's enraging, and since it happened during our fall fundraising drive, we hope the Mother Jones community will stand up for our fearless journalism and send a message with a donation to support it today. All Rights Reserved. Bowden was born the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, and moved to Tucson with his family as a young child for the health of his sister, Graham said. 1995 Charles Bowden story: The sad state of the Sea of Cortes. Also, there was so much killing that the killers started to “sign” their work by arranging the body or body parts in a particular fashion, such as hanging the body from an overpass in morning rush hour traffic with a threat written on a poster board, or cutting off the head and placing it between the legs facing the crotch wearing a Santa Claus hat, or hanging the body, face covered with a pig mask, like Christ crucified on an iron fence. Bowden's books include "Murder City," "Down by the River" and "Blues for Cannibals." A few years later, in the mid-’90s, another reporter named Gary Webb saw the same whale, and he didn’t turn away. He wanted to confess everything. The best tribute to Bowden is one he wrote for a friend and writer, Edward Abbey, in the dedication of one of his books, Graham said.