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Title	:	On Mexican Time: A New Life In San Miguel
Author	:	Tony Cohan
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 304 pages
Published	:	May 8th 2001 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (first published 1999)
Categories	:	Travel. Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir

On Mexican Time: A New Life In San Miguel

Tony Cohan

Hardcover | Pages: 304 pages

Rating: 3.71 | 1790 Users | 180 Reviews

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This is one of those expatriot memoirs where an American or Brit pulls up stakes to live la bella vita--or the simpler life--in some warm clime. Think Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun or Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, usually told oh so lyrically, eruditely, with lots of literary allusions and mentions of mouth-watering cuisine. I’ve been reading through a recommendation list of such travel writing--this was the last--and I suppose my reaction to this one might be put down to having become rather jaded and cranky reading one after another. The blurbs of reviews inside claim Cohan is a better, more gifted writer than you usually see in these travelogues, and call his prose “vivid,” “elegant,” “poetic” and the inevitable, “lyrical.” It boasts the present tense that is the insignia of the literati, rather choppy prose given lots of sentence fragments and short, declarative sentences, and sports such lines as: “Dew drops quiver on the spiky tips of barrel cacti in the glimmering dawn.” I’m afraid reading I often felt suffocated by perfume. The style was possibly my biggest problem with this book--far, far too flowery for my tastes.

There also was something about Cohan’s sensibility that grated on me. There often is an implied insult to expatriot tales if you’re from the country fled from, but in that respect this was the worst among the dozen or so I have read. I took umbrage at the description of New York City, and particularly the Columbia University area, which I know well. He claimed his daughter lived in an apartment on 110th Street infested with “rats and roaches.” (Rats? Mice and roaches I’d believe--was she living in a crack house?) And the neighborhood was filled with “Bums and muggers, rappers and dopeheads.” A lot more dire than I’d describe it, and given the exaggeration about a place I know well, I suspected Cohan felt he had to trash America in order to paint Mexico in this much more idyllic light. It’s a subtle distinction perhaps, but I remember Mayes, for instance, as showing Italy’s appeal without sounding like she felt a need to feel superior to America and its “consumerism” and yet at the same time with Cohan there’s a patronizing streak towards Mexico evident to me at times.

Yet I continued reading beyond the 100-page mark, because I found interesting reading a description of Mexico. It’s a country Americans should know and understand better than we do, and Cohan did weave in bits of in the history and culture of the land he’s residing in, even if I never felt he quite left the lifestyle and mindset of a tourist. And if I sometimes felt he romanticized life in a third world country, at least he wasn’t completely unaware of his privileged status. But if I had to describe in one word the way Cohan came across to me, it would be: smug.

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ISBN:	0747553653 (ISBN13: 9780747553656)
Edition Language:	English

Rating Based On Books On Mexican Time: A New Life In San Miguel

Ratings: 3.71 From 1790 Users | 180 Reviews

Crit Based On Books On Mexican Time: A New Life In San Miguel

I'm headed to San Miguel on a 2.5 week vacation next week so I wanted to see if this book would give me a taste for that experience before I went. While I enjoyed the writing (it's top notch compared to other "travel' books I've read) and also the description of the authors embracing of the authentic Mexican culture, I found the authors tone a little smug and negative --- particularly when talking about the people he met and interacted with along the way. The book is now nearly 20 years old so

This book made me want to live in Mexico. I would be a furniture maker or something. Probably tomar demasiado.

I couldn't get myself to finish this book. It should have been a newspaper column. The story: an artsy-fartsy American couple moves to San Miguel de Allende to get away from the smoggy rat race of Los Angeles. She makes art. He discovers the manana lifestyle.

I wanted to enjoy this book. I loved Mexico when I visited and I have liked other books written by travelers and ex-pats. The descriptions of San Miguel and the authors experiences are rich and evocative. Unfortunately, there were too many things that annoyed me. The description of indigenous people as Indians, as though there arent many different ethnic groups; the authors obsession with beautiful young (sometimes very young) women; his wife, Masako is written as flat and lifeless, serving only



Having just returned from my first visit to San Miguel de Allende I intend to re-read this book. I know that I was enchanted with it from the very first sentence. I even followed up with research regarding the author's wife's artwork and transferred an image (a floating ladder) into some artwork of my own. Now, having seen this remarkable place, I want to learn what Tony Cohen (and his wife) found there which caused them to move from California to San Miguel. Yeah men!

Tony Cohan and his wife decided to move to San Miguel De Allende in the early nineties so this book was his enthusiastic view of living in San Miguel - I enjoyed reading this book as I learned about the culture in a first hand manner - it is an honest book ! Colorful and bright!! His second book - Mexican Days seems more downtrodden and sadder because he and his wife have lost touch and are not so deeply in love with life or each other.