Out of Their Minds

Crosthwaite's second translation into English (after The Moon will Forever Be a Distant Love) follows two Mexican musicians, Ramon and Cornelio, friends since childhood, on a journey that includes the formation , unlikely success, and dissolution, of their phenomenally popular norteno band, Los Relampagos del Agosto. A light read with a preponderance of zippy, half-page-long chapters, feels like a short story inflated to novella length. That is not to say that the book is an unpleasant experience; Crosthwaite offers a few interesting flourishes, as when God occasionally insinuates himself into the narration as a kind of minor character. However, too little lingers after the final page is turned. This may be because it too often echoes, almost beat-for-beat, either the story points of a typical Behind the Music episode, or a retooling of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's troubled friendship unsubtly mapped to the backdrop of the norteno music scene. That conceit, unfortunately, falls short of justifying the reader's time. Peopled with personalities that are more archetypes than dynamic characters, and with a plot whose rhythms are played with regularity, the fiction is just not as engaging as the reality. (May)