The diezmo / Rick Bass.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bass, Rick, 1958-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Texan Mier Expedition (1842-1844)--Fiction.

Texan Mier Expedition.

Texan Mier Expedition (1842-1844).

Americans--Mexico--Fiction.

Americans.

Torture victims.

Mexico.

Prisoners of war--Fiction.

Prisoners of war.

Torture victims--Fiction.

Mexican-American Border Region--Fiction.

Mexican-American Border Region.

Texas--History--To 1846--Fiction.

Texas.

History.

Genre:

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Western stories.

Novels.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

208 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Summary:

In the early days of the Republic of Texas, two young men, wild for glory, impulsively volunteer for an expedition Sam Houston has ordered to patrol the Mexican border. But the dreams of triumph soon fade into prayers for survival when all that is on their minds is getting home and having a cool drink of water. After being captured in a raid on the Mexican village of Mier, escaping, and being recaptured, the men of the expedition are punished with the terrible diezmo, in which one man in ten must die. The survivors end up in the most dreaded prison in Mexico. There they become pawns in an international chess game being played to decide the fate of Texas, and, with their hopes of release all but extinguished, they make one last-ditch, desperate effort to escape. Based on the Mier Expedition, this is one of the most absurd and tragic military adventures in the history of Texas -- a country and a state, as Rick Bass writes, that was "born in blood."

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0395926173

OCLC:

57235889