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Fall 2009

Fall 2009

The War on Drugs

Volume 85, Number 4

• J. Malcom Garcia rides with a crime scene photographer in Juárez
• Simon Apter follows a drug mule trying to go straight
• Natasha Trethewey & Joshua Cogan on Gulfport, Mississippi
• Paul Reyes on a movement to reclaim foreclosed houses in Miami
• Installment #6 of “Jordan W. Lint” by Chris Ware
• Poetry by Bruce Bond, CJ Evans, and Thorpe Moeckel
 
 

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Fall 2009, The War on Drugs

Table of Contents

The Mule

By Simon Apter

Fall 2009

The first run, from Tampa to McAllen to Greensboro, was a bit of a lark. Maria was living in Tampa, and she was bored. So when a friend, someone she knew to be a Mexican drug cartel–affiliated smuggler, appeared at her door with a business proposition, she leapt at the opportunity. He said to her and her friend, “You girls want to make about $5,000 for driving for us for a few hours?”

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Editor’s Desk

Reporting

Essays

Game Over

By Robert Anasi, Photography by John Ryan Brubaker

Fiction

Poetry

Women of Troy

By Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, Photography by Brenda Ann Kenneally

Prodigal I

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Just a Girl

By Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, Photography by Brenda Ann Kenneally

Criticism

Witness

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Tower

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Watcher

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Believer

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Kin

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

Exegesis

By Natasha Trethewey, Photography by Joshua Cogan

A Call to Arms

By Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, Photography by Brenda Ann Kenneally

Multimedia

Author Profiles

Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey, a VQR contributing editor, served two terms as the nineteenth Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014).

Simon Apter

Simon Maxwell Apter is the online editor at Lapham’s Quarterly. He is a regular reviewer for NPR’s Books We Like department, and his commentary and criticism have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the Nation, th