Living on the Edge of America: At Home on the Texas-Mexico Border

An atmospheric and slightly surreal quality enriches this paean to the Rio Grande Valley by Maril ( Cannibals and Condos ), a sociologist who moved from upstate New York in 1975 and wound up teaching in Brownsville, Tex., for the next 13 years. At first overwhelmed by the heat and the palmetto bugs, he soon adjusted to the climate--meteorological and cultural--of the region. These recollections are sympathetic quirky portrayals of the mostly Mexican and Mexican-American people Maril taught, worked for, hung out with and in two cases, served as foster parents for. Especially notable are his descriptons of the landscape, as when he writes about the smell of ``the hyperventilated blend of rich desert air, diesel fumes, orange blossoms, human sweat, at base, the aroma of thick stands of mesquite resistant under the stars.'' Occasionally he lapses into a sociologist's obsessive noting of details, interesting or not. But mostly this is a zesty account of Tex-Mex life. (Sept.)