The Devil's Highway Sparknotes

In Luis Urrea’s true account novel “The Devil’s Highway” deeply thought provoking tale of 26 men who literally walked through madness incarnate. A tale that is still not entirely told due to over half the men were claimed by the desert; a living breathing ocean of fire. Even though over half of the men who took the challenge died, the story that the living told is still amazing and gut-wrenching. With Luis’s in-depth investigation and interviews, he paints a vivid story layered in deception, hope, struggle, and death so horrific that it has stained the Arizona Desert as a haunted man eating place that angels and demons dwell. The way that he carefully examines and defines the walkers; unceremoniously coined “Pollos” by those that are supposed

Most, if not all the men came from indigenous backgrounds and Spanish was their second language. Most have never even eaten typical Mexican food such as tortillas, most of them still eat as their ancestors the Aztecs did. Luis makes note that north Mexico was as foreign to them as America was. Their naivety showed in spades from the start. The spark of high hopes, jokes, and whispered excitement resonates from the very beginning of their journey. From being blatantly being lied to by the Coyotes, their total lack of foresight when they purchased two Pepsi’s for their journey across a desert notorious for unremorsly claiming everything for itself and where it was almost a constant 108* throughout the entire

The methods that he deploys to share this story help to expand and draw you into their story and what was happening in their minds. He so vividly explains in detail the way the human body responds to such torture in the desert that I’m sure if any of these men knew what could happen they would have stuffed their pesos back into their pockets and went home and forgetting all about Mars bars, and ice cold American beer. Some of the methods he uses to convey the hardships that all involved endure is by delving deeply into the history and available records on this incident. Luis painstakingly scours over testimony, trial records, and interviews with both the survivors and the Border Patrol that recovered