The Old Gringo

Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes’s historical novel The Old Gringo (1985) tells the story of an aging American writer and veteran of the American Civil War who leaves his life behind to seek out a glorious death in Mexico during that country's 1910 revolution. Originally written in Spanish, the book's English translation became the first-ever U.S. bestseller written by a writer from Mexico.

The book's narrative is framed as a collection of memories belonging to an unnamed woman who "sits alone and remembers." The year is sometime in the early 1910s, presumably, as a civil war has broken out in Mexico. An elderly American storywriter and journalist formerly employed by William Randolph Hearst's empire decides that instead of passing away quietly, he will die in a blaze of glory in Mexico. His wife is dead, his two sons are dead, and his daughter is estranged. With little if anything else to live for, the old man gathers up limited provisions—which include two copies of his own literary work and, fittingly, a copy of Don Quixote about a man who fights foolish battles—and seeks out the army of Pancho Villa, commander of the Division del Norte of Mexico's Constitutional Army.

He finds a regiment led by one of Villa's subordinates "General" Tomas Arroyo, who has just completed a successful attack on a hacienda owned and operated by the wealthy Miranda family. Arroyo's army kills most of the servants there, destroying virtually every structure on the land, save for a wall covered in mirrors which he commands his army of commoners to gaze at. This campaign is a personal one for Arroyo, whose indigenous mother was raped by the patriarch of the Miranda family. In the wake of this personal victory, the old American writer confronts Arroyo, asking to join his army. Naturally, Arroyo is reluctant, but the old man proves his skill with a pistol by shooting a hole through a peso thrown in the air. Arroyo and his compatriots call the old man "The Indiana General" owing to the fact that he served with the Indiana Volunteer Regiment during the American Civil War.



There is at least one other American at the hacienda: thirty-one-year-old Harriet Winslow (it is suggested that Harriet is the unnamed woman from the beginning of the novel). The Miranda family had hired Harriet to tutor their children, but by the time she arrived, the whole family had already fled in anticipation of Arroyo's troops. At first, Harriet stubbornly refuses to leave the grounds of the mostly-demolished hacienda as she had been paid to be there; however, she changes her mind, deciding to accompany Arroyo's troops because she feels strangely responsible for the well-being of the old man. Meanwhile, even though the old man knows a young woman like Harriet isn't likely to return his affections, he can't help but fall for her.

As Arroyo and his men engage in various instances of armed combat, the old man—almost by accident—distinguishes himself in battle, committing a number of heroic acts largely because he has no fear of dying. Relations between Arroyo and the old man cool, however, after the old man refuses to execute a captured federal soldier. He tries to trick Arroyo by shooting a pig devouring a nearby dead body, but Arroyo catches him. While Arroyo could have executed the old man for disobeying his orders, instead, he punishes him by coercing Harriet, whom he knows the old man loves, into a sexual relationship. While the extent to which Harriet desires Arroyo sexually is unclear, she considers her sexual acts with him a necessary sacrifice to save the old man's life. Meanwhile, the old man dismisses that justification, reiterating the fact that he came to Mexico to die.

Tensions between Arroyo and the old man—who is finally revealed to be the real-life American author, Ambrose Bierce—erupt after Ambrose sets fire to Arroyo's documents granting land to Mexican peasants. Arroyo shoots Ambrose in the back. When the war is over and Harriet is back in the U.S., she appeals the American government to have the body of Ambrose, whom she falsely claims to be her father, returned so he might have a military burial on U.S. soil. Anxious about sparking tensions with the U.S. over the coldblooded murder of an American by one of his "generals," Pancho Villa executes Arroyo for the crime of killing Ambrose.



The Old Gringo is both a rousing adventure story and a sobering look at the violence of the Mexican Revolution.