While there has been media created that captures an era in time perfectly, there are few that are so ingrained in a moment that you feel like you’re there. It isn’t just a snapshot from a distance of looking into the past and admiring the value of hindsight. It’s the sense that you’re watching a moment with such confidence that you buy into every characters’ uncertainty, their naivety, and belief that their opinion is somehow superior to another. For me, a recent example is Zach Clark’s Little Sister (2016), which is the closest I’ve felt cinema get to capturing the waning days of the George W. Bush Administration, watching Barack Obama’s campaign and feeling some hope for the future. So many of the small aspects pop and make you understand a moment in a shift that only comes, presumably, every four or eight years. It’s a loss of a moment that we’ll never get back. Some see it as triumphant while others bittersweet. It’s just how nostalgia works.
Which is to say that I prefer the romanticism of Little Sister to how Don Winslow paints The Bush Administration. This isn’t to say that it’s anywhere as tender or affecting, but you’d be forgiven for finding it all a bit heightened and ridiculous. I’m sure it all is. If you watch the Oliver Stone adaptation of Savages (2012), you’ll believe that there’s this raw intensity that is injected into every scene, where Benicio Del Toro is somehow doomed to play nothing but Mexican drug lords. Even if it’s a painful stereotype that he’s continued to do great as recently as Sicario (2015), he does it so well. You’re intimidated by his stare, not wanting to get on his bad side. He has a physicality that preaches dominance, and it’s the type of performer you need for a role like this.
The truth is that my memory seems to be kinder to the movie than just about anyone who’s seen it. Of course, this was coming during the waning days of Stone when his conspiracy thrillers were lacking the punch they did in the 80s and 90s. It was a wild journey that leads to one of my favorite interviews. I forget where it was, but Winslow – in the lead-up to the film’s release – mentioned that Stone changed the ending of the movie from a brutal shootout to something a lot tamer because he had “fallen in love with these characters.”
This isn’t to say that anyone in this story is redeemable. That’s sort of the point. Winslow’s story is a journey into the American-Mexican drug trade as seen through the eyes of three young capitalists. They’re all a bit nihilistic, becoming your stereotype for the ignorant and selfish breed of Republican who are out for only themselves, to gain a sense of wealth that they feel is in their birthright. It’s the type of story that features a whole chapter dedicated to equating religion to every store at the mall, saying that you’re praying at their altars. These people are confrontational, aggressive, and unwilling to be persuaded otherwise. Their thoughts on Bush are that he’s doing a great job and that every terrorist deserves to die.
In a lot of ways, Winslow’s characters are so self-involved that you can argue that they resonate today in a slightly altered form. The only major difference is that there is this confidence underneath the druggy surface, constantly giving into hormones and building this warped palace of success from drug dealing. It’s a story so ingrained in The Iraq War that at one point there’s a scene where girlfriend O claims that Chon has “wargasms.”
Even if these are accentuated versions of an era, they feel like a piece of The Bush Administration that has been tried to be forgotten. None of these central characters are exactly pleasant Americans. If anything, Winslow holds a certain animosity towards them, making you loathe them even as they put on a face to make themselves seem transgressive and tough, capable of being superior to any problem that comes their way. They’re not. They’re stoners who lucked out and lost sight of most humanity. If it doesn’t have to do with their immediate friend group, they’re not going to act like you matter. It’s intriguing that Stone didn’t want them to do die because they were idiots who were spiraled into a terrible situation.
It should be noted that while these characters sound unpleasant, credit should be given to Winslow for making this novel a compulsive read. The first chapter says it all in only two words: “Fuck you.” Before even introducing these characters, there is this sense of divide, this extremist view of patriotism that it’s us versus them, and that we reserve the right to shoot trespassers with a gun. It’s a breed of Americans that serve as their own negative stereotype, more likely to tear the country apart than look for answers to help your fellow men. Some people think that this mentality didn’t exist 15 years ago. Winslow posits that it did, just in smaller pockets of power, able to exist outside of government control, where money was able to give you diplomatic immunity.
It’s so true that he has taken to writing the book in a more manic style. Along with chapters that are sometimes broken down into a dozen words, he sometimes breaks up paragraphs into stylized scripts, turning others into poems and advertisements that are all indicative of how flashy these characters are. They can’t be bothered to learn conventions. They make their own, and it’s easily the high point of “Savages.” It’s the reason that this book is at all enjoyable, able to take us into the world of awful characters without feeling like we’re endorsing their world view. In fact, it’s arguable that Winslow is criticizing you IF you have even a small inclination to like these guys. That’s right, he’s looking at you Stone.
Of course, there is the “antagonist” of this piece in The Mexican Drug Cartel, led by Lado and Elena. In some ways, Elena is among the most pleasant and compassionate characters in this narrative just because she has a family and a seemingly normal life. However, even she has her sights on control and this is a story about how humanity is going to die from its own arrogance. In some ways their narratives are much more compassionate, mixing Spanglish prose in and giving them more of humanity. It’s likely an instinctual approach to reflect how American ignorance and inability to just mind your own business is likely going to come back to hurt you.
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Remember though, there’s Lado who does the dirty work. He’ll break into homes to kidnap people and cause hostage crises that are downright disturbing. In fact, the second act reveal that Lado captured O leads to some of Winslow’s more pointed commentary, suggesting that this is as much about border relations as it is The War on Terrorism. Chon and Ben communicate with Lado through a black market webcam that gives them access to murder and torture videos, reflecting a sick subsidiary of humanity that they somehow know about. It’s the perverse idea that the world’s troubles are now available for streaming, and it’s your job to not feel too emotionally distant while also having enough that you don’t become psychologically disturbed for the rest of your life.
The rest is a journey of two dumb white guys trying to save their girlfriend. Think of it is as knights going into the castle to save the princess. It’s the romanticized version that they think they’re doing but in a modern warfare kind of route. It’s brutal and, as mentioned, doesn’t go according to plan. Still, it shows how they’re so disconnected from the world around them that their fantasies of superiority can come back to hurt them. They think they’re invulnerable, but in reality, they are weak, just as likely to fall victim to a bullet as those around them.
I know that it’s difficult to understand just how this reminds me of The Bush Administration, but there’s something about the in-between moments that make me feel like I’ve never seen a story capture the mentality of this era so perfectly. It’s in more than the stylized violence, or the strange belief that everyone outside of the country is suspect. It’s in the hazy cloud of uncertainty, the way that the prose structure sometimes breaks down and captures selfishness so clearly, how the discussion of defending yourself becomes something so brutal, reflective of masculinity that it ignores certain aspects of empathy.
It could just be how they react to the news, or how everything seems to symbolize everything that was wrong with the mid-2000s, but it embodies so much of what felt wrong with the geopolitical landscape during this time. It’s in how the war has filled some characters with PTSD while also throwing them into drug trades with the most dangerous of people. It’s in capitalism and the belief that consumerism will cure misery. Nobody trusts each other outside of their main group, and it’s clear that while these characters are well-educated in current news, it’s not likely that they understand it as something more nuanced and worthy of compassion. They spend more time complaining than solving anything.
For whatever reason, I have yet to read another Winslow book despite being highly impressed with this story. It’s an interesting mix of nonfiction and fantasy, finding ways to make these details come to life with the most obnoxious characters imaginable. It’s in the structure, the idea that they’re somehow different from those around them and that you’ll find their scathing humor delightful. I don’t believe that Winslow is like this in real life, but he’s so convincing in how he immerses you in this world, informing and entertaining in equal measure. I’d like to imagine that his other crime novels have the same casual hostility to them that would make you appreciate the subtext all the more, being able to look through the ugliness and find the message underneath.
Then again, I think the reason I’m reminded of this story now and how attentive his eye was in “Savages” is because of his recent time on Twitter. Along with authors like Stephen King, he’s been vocal in trying to point out modern corruption in such a way that he wants you to become active. It’s far more compassionate and sincere than anything in this book, but I feel like the intent reflects what makes him an intriguing writer. He cares so much about his vision that he almost wants to avoid further damage so he doesn’t have to process his own thoughts through cynical, nihilistic prose.
I’m sure one day I will read another one of his books and discover just how much I do or don’t like his work. I’ll admit that I think of “Savages” as a superior version of the movie, even if I still think that I like both. They feel a bit too unrealistic to ever be truly believable, and yet there’s something instinctual that I can’t put away while reading it. I feel the danger, the ignorance, the fear of a country being torn apart over narcissism. It’s the push to not repeat the past, to follow a just path. I can’t imagine what a Winslow novel about the past four years would look like. Would it be angrier, more manic, and out of control? I don’t know if I want to find out, but at least I’m sure it will be one of the most definitive looks at an era that I can’t wait to be over.
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