Puerto Vallarta Squeeze-Robert James Waller

Puerto Vallarta Squeeze is the second novel by Robert James Waller I read after The Bridges of Madison County. While PVS was not nearly as good as the borderline poetic word mastery of Bridges, it was still an entertaining little Mexican road trip tale written with very good prose.

PVS reminded me a bit of Tim Roth's breakout film The Hit. In The Hit, Tim Roth plays underling gangster to John Hurt's veteran sensei character while towing around hostage Terrance Stamp and picking up bombshell damsel Laura del Sol along the way with everything unraveling by the film's end.

In PVS, it is a distant cousin to outlaws on the run that you as the reader begin to ping-pong your affections to each one of the characters.

Danny Pastor is the main protagonist—a washed-up gringo journalist biding his time between beers and royalty checks south of the border. Maria de Luz Santos is a drop-dead gorgeous senorita that grew up the hard way and dreams of linking up with a rich gringo that will whisk her away to El Norte and instead finds Danny. Who treats her more or less as a damaged commodity, but still has strong feelings for her. Clayton Price is a very calloused individual who, in his eroding skills as an aging hitman, lets personal feelings get in the way of a contract execution and has the government's most vicious hounds on his tail. Danny sees the botched hit and Clayton figures this out and manages to sidle up to the couple at a different bar to make them an offer they can't refuse: $5000 for a ride to the border plus cash for expenses.

The angel on Danny's shoulder knows this guy is bad news, but the devil sees prospects beyond the $5000 and a future novel in store. The following morning they leave to head north and all sorts of shenanigans unfold.

***

After completing the second of Robert James Wallers' novels I get the sense that there was a lot of torture from the opposite sex in his life. Extreme games of tug of war with his emotions leave a permanently jaded scope of reflection upon the women who provided him with some of the greatest highs and lowest lows.

Infidelity plays heavily in both PVS and Bridges. In Bridges, it is poetically spilled, like a glass of red wine on white tablecloth once two lovers submit to a tryst they know they shouldn't have but bypass these reservations for the heat of the moment. In PVS, it is Luz's futile dreams of escape, that have always been just out of reach, she sees first in Danny, who brings her halfway up the mountain, and then in Clayton, who promises to complete the journey to the top. Clayton seems to serve as the apparition conduit that will rendezvous Luz with complete happiness and she seems to have no hesitations in leaving Danny for an upgrade in Clayton. But even after they give in to temptation, Clayton's impotence serves as an amplified harbinger to Luz as it was to Danny: stay away from this path.

Through both Luz and Clayton, I see the remaining fragments of lives that felt completely unaligned with their prescribed vessels. Dreamers and lovers forced upon hard paths from the nurturing stage only wishing to return to the peaceful tranquility of a quiet life. A life of flat topography in the terrain of events. One perhaps found on porch swings or rocking chairs somewhere in the mountains, while the rest of the world carries on with worry and hurry.

I think, as writers, that is the dream of many of us. To breach through that barrier of financial uncertainty and achieve the secure bliss of knowing that we no longer have to lose sleep over how we will make the ends become acquainted. Or wrestle with the internal echoes of uncertainty that tell us we've made a mistake by venturing off the path of the mainstream. To erase the feeling that someday we are going to pay for our transgressions of taking a risk and gambling on ourselves.

I see a lot of this in both Luz and Clayton. And with Danny being a writer who is licking his wounds through beer between royalty checks, I don't believe that I am far off from this metaphorical analysis.

Just the other day, at the record store, I had a customer who was in town from Montreal, touring along with Cirque Du Soleil. We chatted a bit about what life was like and how much she enjoyed seeing parts of the world in one year that most would never see for themselves in ten lifetimes. Then the conversation turned to life after the tour finished and what lay just around the bend.

"Do you ever feel anxious about the lack of certainty that another gig will pop up after this contract finishes?" I wondered.

"Severe anxiety." She admitted without hesitation.

The struggle is real and the road is long. And even when we reach the finish line of that journey, are we ever really satisfied? It's tough to say. But I will let you know once I get there myself.

Good, fun novel. Not as good as Bridges, melancholy, but a very good read nevertheless. Quick and easy to digest and chock full of intrigue.

Grade: B+