Tim MacGabhann’s Saints is a walk on the wild side through modern Mexico. Nine stories trace the fragile rhythms of survival, the tenderness of human connection and the gestures of courage that keep us going.
In the opening story, Chair, an addict hauls sandbags across a soaked Mexico city rooftop. Neon-lit sex shops and pulquerías blur in the downpour as he confesses: “I am just always trying to make less stuff happen all the time.” Less resignation than prayer, it is his bid to hold the world together. Inside, mismatched chairs, doughnuts and coffee create a sanctuary for lost souls, Depeche Mode humming next door – ordinary holiness in vivid detail.
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Cleaner unfolds with cinematic attention, evoking the movie Heat: “Stooping at Diego’s side, he remembers De Niro ... all careful, frowning precision.” From Lucio’s cleaning routines to administering naloxone, MacGabhann captures the delicate dance of addiction and care with quiet empathy.
In Satellite, Alejandro, a retired marine turned cop, rides predawn streets to witness a Chinese satellite splash down in the Gulf. Rain-slicked roads, chilaquiles in cafes, and Oxxos cut through the mist as he drifts between remembering missing cadets and the quiet duty of guiding a lost young man. Ordinary gestures meet cosmic spectacle, reflecting a central tension in Saints: survival against forces threatening to pull us under.
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Elsewhere, moral reckonings and quiet revelations unfold. A sewer worker in Dive warns: “Whatever you do, if you’re not doing something to make it better, you’re making it worse.” Helena battles a rising tide as her car sinks in Beach, recalling the turbulence she fled in 1973 when “it got really weird ... if you were ‘active politically’ in the US” – achingly familiar amid today’s unrest.
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The title story carries the same thread of endurance, woven through Veronica’s restoration of a damaged Maximón statue, an act of mourning for her son: “Every time Carlos left the house, I’d get this tearing feeling ... now he’s never going to come through the door again.”
Darkly funny, humane and alive to everyday miracles, Saints is a timely reminder that courage and connection matter, on the streets of Mexico and in the currents of our own lives.
Yvonne Watterson is an Irish writer living in Mexico
