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The Line Becomes a River

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The Line Becomes a River

By: Francisco Cantú
Narrated by: Francisco Cantú
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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Line Becomes a River, written and read by Francisco Cantú.

How does a line in the sand become a barrier that people will risk everything to cross?

Francisco Cantú was a US Border Patrol agent from 2008 to 2012. He worked the desert along the Mexican border, at the remote crossroads of drug routes and smuggling corridors, tracking humans through blistering days and frigid nights across a vast terrain.

He detains the exhausted and the parched. He hauls in the dead. He tries not to think where the stories go from there.

He is descended from Mexican immigrants, so the border is in his blood. But the line he is sworn to defend is dissolving. Haunted by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. And when an immigrant friend is caught on the wrong side of the border, Cantú faces a final confrontation with a world he believed he had escaped.

The Line Becomes a River is timely and electrifying. It brings to life this landscape of sprawling borderlands and the countless people who risk their lives to cross it. Yet it takes us beyond one person's experience to reveal truths about life on either side of an arbitrary line, wherever it is.

©2018 Francisco Cantú (P)2018 Random House Audiobooks Americas Emigration & Immigration Mexico Social Sciences Latin American

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Critic reviews

"Stunningly good. Beautiful, smart, raw, sad, poetic and humane.... It's the best thing I've read for ages." (James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life)
All stars
Most relevant  
Insightful, interesting, and at times poetic book, by a great, humane new writing talent. This book is a must-listen for anyone interested in modern US or Mexican politics, the southwest US, or simply well-written, atmospheric, moving literature. Excellent book. Highly recommend.

Superb and important book

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In these days of the talk of a wall between USA and Mexico, and the Caravan waiting in Mexico to cross to USA, this story gives a human insight into their reasons for the crossing and their suffering to do so, and the unfairness of the division between the wealthy and the trapped poor. Excellent and thoroughly recommended.

Thought provoking

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Francisco Cantú is a third-generation Mexican-American who worked as a US Border Patrol agent for almost four years. Subverting the stereotype somewhat, he is compassionate and empathetic towards the ‘crossers’ he encounters (and is forced to detain); and his sleep is increasingly plagued with hyper-realistic nightmares triggered by internal conflict. His prose is lyrical, beautiful and dream-like and the book is peppered with statistics and historical context, so I really learned a lot about life both sides of the border. The final third, where he details the tragic case of a close friend being deported away from his wife and children is heartbreaking – and illustrates the need for stories about those who are often voiceless to be humanely told.

Compassionate and humane...

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The story begins strongly, with the author's service in immigration/border patrol. The mid section of the book feels like there are too many quotes from other writings and it sounds more like an essay than a book. There seems to be more dream description than writing about real life too.

A narrative appears again in the final third, although it left me wanting more.

Moving but sometimes feels like an essay

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A very insightful book on the US-Mexico border and on migration in general. Read by the author himself, it shows the topic from a changing perspective as Cantú's take on the subject changes in time and through direct experience. The book might leave you with a bitter feeling, but I guess this is exactly how it should be. Definitely worth reading/listening.

Must read

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