WASHINGTON—The scene is familiar. A rookie border patrol officer gets recruited to be an informant in a Mexican crime family. Soon, he finds himself in the “triple border” region of South America—a lawless zone where Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet.
That’s the premise of award-winning investigative journalist Sebastian Rotella’s new novel. But it’s rooted in the reality of his life as a reporter.
Journalist-turned-novelist Sebastian Rotella at the Politics & Prose bookstore author event on Monday. (Angie Chung/MNS)
Rotella, who worked at the Los Angeles Times for 23 years, said while some aspects are purely fictional, the book is inspired by what he saw reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border for five years, from 1991 to 1996.
For Rotella, authenticity matters.
“One of the reasons I enjoyed writing this novel was because a lot of it comes out of the things I’ve done as a reporter,” Rotella said. “I was able to write with much more authority in a more literary way.”
The novel, “Triple Crossing,” is Rotella’s first work of fiction.
“Many details of the subcultures of policing and smuggling, of the topography and sociology of the borderlands, are grounded in the present. Others grow out of a past reality that has since evolved.”
The longtime journalist presents vivid characters, some of whom are based on people he met as a reporter, including young gang members from San Diego who were arrested after becoming soldiers for the Tijuana cartel. The recruitment of U.S. gang members by Mexican drug cartels has become a phenomenon all along the border.
“You’re writing a fiction but you want it to be true,” said Rotella, who also authored a book of non-fiction shaped by what he learned reporting on the border.
There’s no simple way to get to the idea of truth, Rotella said, but he advocates spending a lot of time working hard to understand what’s really going on, as well as gathering up a lot of knowledge and a lot of material about how the world works.
It was vital to develop a variety of sources on both sides of the border, Rotella said, in high places and on the ground, and with differing perspectives: US and Mexican law enforcement officials, human rights activists, academics and smugglers.
“And when you write this kind of fiction, that really helps a lot,” the author added, “and I think more and more people want that kind of authenticity.”
Rotella, who is now a senior reporter for ProPublica—an independent organization dedicated to investigative journalism—also did stints in London, Paris and Buenos Aires for the Los Angeles Times.