A Different Kind of War: Uneasy Encounters in Mexico and Central America

Families fleeing the violence of Honduras. Mexican reporters covering gang conflict in Juarez. Children living off the refuse of a landfill. Informed by grief and anger and told in varied and distinctive voices, A Different Kind of War: Uneasy Encounters in Mexico and Central America offers a sensitive exploration of men and women connected by courage, resilience, and the need for human connection in the face of uncommon adversity.

Editorial Reviews
"Garcia does an excellent job at describing the [region's] history of institutional and governmental corruption."
––San Diego Union-Tribune

“A Different Kind of War: Uneasy Encounters in Mexico and Central America documents peoples' lives, interactions, disappearances and threats, and the changing atmospheres of their worlds…These stories often read with the quiet drama of fiction.”
––Midwest Book Review

“I was riveted by these tales of mean streets and lost souls, just as I was inspired by the portraits of those brave people who face down despair every day, and persevere.”
––Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk in Circles

“In many ways, A Different Kind of War is an update of Luis Alberto Urrea’s powerful1993 book Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border, but what one discovers is that life has be-come even more precarious for the poor in Guatemala and Mexico. Read this book if you dare.”
––David Unger, author of Life in the Damn Tropics

“This collection illustrates that while one writer cannot save the world and all its woes, he can write about those individuals risking their own well-being to help others, and in turn make a difference in all our lives by chronicling their stories of compassion, mercy and fortitude as Garcia so lyrically does in A Difference Kind of War.”
––Tina Schumann, editor, Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents, and author of Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues.

“This collection of essays by J. Malcolm Garcia is a must-read for those who want to better under-stand the plight of common people victimized by the hardships of life outside and inside the belly of the beast.”
––Álvaro Huerta, Ph.D., author of Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm

"[T]here’s a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy. He writes powerful and lyrical nonfiction from Afghanistan, from Buenos Aires, from Mississippi, all of it urgent and provocative. I’ve been following him wherever he goes."
—Dave Eggers