Gringos review
By Charles Michaud
[
A review of Gringos, by Charles Portis,
Transcribed by Alex T. Moore from Library Journal (January, 1991),
for non-commercial use on The Unofficial Charles Portis Website
(http://charlesportis.cjb.net).
]

Portis's "gringos" are a motley bunch of archaelogists, UFO-ologists,
New Age mystics, Mormons, teenage runaways, Mayan artifact smugglers, 
and assorted expatriates floating around the Yucatan peninsula like 
so much flotsam.  But most of them are there for a reason.  They are 
all trying to make some kind of contact:  with the ancient Mayan 
civilization, an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, the 
supernatural, even their inner selves.  Portis grandly spoofs some of
these ridiculous quests, but realizes his gringos travel in a world
that can turn deadly and may even demand blood sacrifice.  It is a 
world where things rarely are what they seem and where connections 
are often made only by chance.  Readers who delighted in the author's 
True Grit (LJ 5/1/68) or The Dog of the South (LJ 4/15/79) will not 
be disappointed.