In the genre of memoir travel writing, Blogging South of the Border: Notes from a so-called Third-World Country debuts as a significant competitor for the Social Humor Commentary of the decade in Mexican and American relations. Author Doug Bower, an American expatriate, bobs and weaves, in and out, over and under the multitude of cultural comparisons he makes between the two cultures. He shares his observations of life in a Third World Country critically and humorously. He takes no prisoners.
After a lifetime of living in the U.S., Bower and his wife of 22 years moved to Guanajuato, Mexico, to spend the rest of their days. Both are writers. Blogging South of the Border: Notes from a so-called Third-World Country, originally meant to be a column, blew up into a full-sized book. This collection of daily essays is taken from Bower's daily grind as an American expatriate.
Blogging South of the Border: Notes from a so-called Third-World Country is a delightful and gentle union of humor and serious contemplation of what life is really like in Mexico. Nothing is spared--from dog poop on the sidewalks to mountains of bloodied meat sitting in the back of a truck outside your local butcher shop. Constant comparison is made between life in America and that in Mexico.
Bower also constantly examines the relationship between a Mexico-ignorant America and how that works out in issues such as The Minuteman Project, The Ugly American Syndrome, NAFTA, monolingualism in America, and the Americanization of Mexico.
