Borders come up constantly in The Devil’s Highway. There is the literal border between Mexico and the United States. But there are also borders separating classes and races that must be crossed in order to achieve a better life. When the walkers begin to hallucinate, the border between sanity and madness is vividly invoked. Even truth is a porous border in the book; when questioned about what happened, the stories told by the walkers (and Mendez) vary wildly in their details. 

Desolation is both a region and a state of being. Merriam-Webster’s definitions range from “A barren wasteland,” “A state of complete emptiness or destruction,” to “Anguished misery or loneliness.” The walkers have all experienced some form of desolation before embarking on their fatal journey. But once they are in the desert, they see how literal desolation can be. Desolation is similar to poverty in that it has many facets: emotional, intellectual, opportunistic, material and spiritual. 

The desert is so harsh that it is presided over by other, older Gods than those familiar to most in the west. Its Gods demand sacrifices. They are pitiless and vindictive. The punishments for venturing onto The Devil’s Highway are so severe that they look like retribution against