8.20.2017  Joe Tone on Bones, breaking through from journalism to the publishing deal, and the smell of new books

In his debut book, Joe Tone tells the story of how two brothers, one immigrating to the U.S. and the other joining the Zeta cartel of Mexico, crossed paths later in life. Although the tale is as gripping as any novel, it’s not fiction. It’s a true story, and since 2012 former Dallas Observer editor Tone has been trying to solve the puzzle of a family saga of cartels, horse racing, and cowboys. Last week Tone talked us with via email, to tell us a bit about how he put the pieces together.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Congratulations on your new book and your movie deal! Since 1997 you've been on a relentless path — college, graduate school, daily newspaper, a series of alternative newspapers, working most recently as the editor-in-chief of the Dallas Observer. How did growing up in Northern California in the 1980s and ’90s inspire your decision to go into journalism?

JOE TONE: My mom played a big role, always strategically leaving the newspaper in front of my breakfast in the morning. Sports helped, too: I loved them, but was never quite big enough to compete, so I used my reporter's notebook as my way onto the sidelines and into locker rooms. That started me on the path to storytelling, and I had some great professors, editors, and mentors who expanded my journalistic and literary horizons over the years.

The story behind Bones: Brothers, Horses, Cartels and the Borderland Dream is a fascinating one involving hours of research learning the players juxtaposed between Dallas horse racing and Mexican drug cartels. From a New York Times article you saw mention it in 2012 to your own Dallas Observer front-page story in 2015, you never stopped chasing that story down. Can you share with our readers some of the processes it took to write that article?

It started with records; it usually does. After reading about it, I followed the case through the court records, waiting for it to develop to the point where I could try to tell it with authority and scope. Then, after the trial, I reached out to the law enforcement agents involved. That gave me enough to get going, and it all snowballed from there — one interview leading to another document, that document to another name, and so on, until I had enough to fill a book, with plenty for the cutting-room floor.

Even after you had written the enterprise piece for your newspaper, you knew that there was still much more to the story, and you kept working on it, and even attracted the attention of an agent which got you a book deal.  How did that all come about?

My agent, David Patterson, and I had been working together on a different project that fell through. When it did, I immediately told him about this story, which I was still gathering string on. He loved it, and encouraged me to publish a newspaper story about it while plotting a book proposal. Once that story came out, in the spring of 2015, we delivered the proposal to a handful of editors, and it found its way to Chris Jackson at Random House. He loved it, wanted it, and had a tremendous vision for it, so off we went.

Then, you did what so many writers are afraid to do. You quit your day job. You left the Dallas Observer to go write the book. How long did that take and what was your creative process like?

It took about two years. The first few months were terrifying: I'd been putting stories into the world, as a reporter and editor, at least weekly since I was a teenager, more or less. You don't realize how much that means to your ego until your byline disappears for a few months. But I eventually realized that more than publishing, I truly enjoyed the process of reporting and writing, which allowed me to settle into it. I reported and researched exclusively for a few months, wrote and reported for about nine, wrote exclusively for a while, then spent time rewriting and editing. Then, waiting. There was a lot of waiting.

Earlier this month, the book came out. What was it like to finally hold Bones in your hands?

Incredible. Before I pursued the book, I'd toyed seriously with leaving journalism, for all the reasons journalists make that choice. But I knew that if I did, I'd have regrets about not having exhausted the potential of my writing. To have stared down those doubts and emerged with a book — a real book that I'm deeply proud of and that readers and critics seem to enjoy and appreciate — is incredible. Plus, it smells really good. New books always do.

While you were working on this book, did you ever get threatened or feel endangered by someone in a criminal element?

I was never threatened, and never felt in any danger. One of the themes of the book is how the rules of engagement in the drug war is different for white Americans than it is for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. That extends to journalists, too, I think: In Mexico, reporting on the cartels, or on the government's complicity with the cartels, is dangerous, and too often deadly, and those crimes are rarely solved. For me? Reporting on horse-racing, mostly from the safety of U.S. racetracks and auction houses and breeding farms? No — I never felt unsafe. Not even meeting with former traffickers and informants, who just wanted to be heard, and for the world to know the truth about the Zetas' leadership.

How is the movie coming along? Will it be shot in Dallas? Will you play a consulting role? What's the time frame for the film?

There’s no timeline, and these things tend to move slowly. But we have a great screenwriter, Mauricio Katz, who’s written beautifully about Mexico and the drug war, and he's hard at work on a very promising script. And our producers at Anonymous Content are thrilled to tell the story, and to tell it in a way that respects the real people whose story it will tell. I'm a co-producer, which I think just means that I keep my phone on in case Mauricio needs me. Mostly I’m trying to let the experts do their job and stay out of the way.

If our readers were interested in laying down a few bets at a horse racing track, would you have any advice for them — given how much time you spent there researching the book and story?

Based on my experience, my advice would be: Stay away. I laid my share of bets, and never saw a penny.

What insights did this experience give you on drug trafficking?

Drug use has been called a victimless crime; yet, we read and hear about violence and death from cartels — especially from Mexico — all the time.

What’s your takeaway on the “War on Drugs”?

My takeaway is not an earth-shattering one: The War on Drugs is futile, and dangerous, and racist, and it needs to stop. It’s a war rooted in racist, craven campaign strategies, and its most demonstrable effects have been the mass incarceration of black and Hispanic men and the deaths of thousands of Mexicans — 23,000 last year alone, according to Mexico's own estimates. I knew this going in; reporting the book just sharpened the focus.

What’s next for Joe Tone?

Another book, certainly, although I’ll need to develop a worthy story first. In the meantime, I may return to a newsroom, if one will have me. What did the president call journalists? Enemies of the State? Whatever it was, count me among them, and if anyone has an open cubicle, I’d be happy to be back in the fight.

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