Alumnus’ novel exploring borderlands, human trafficking wins state library award

David McCabe
had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and wanted to take up the writing life. Then his stepfather opened the want ads of the newspaper and said take a look. See much for writers with history degrees?

McCabe didn’t. Thankfully, he also loved the idea of teaching. So he enrolled in Chapman University’s teacher education program, graduated with his credential in 1995 and began a successful education career that led to his current post as associate professor and coordinator of teacher education at Pasadena City College.

But he kept writing, too, and this month his first novel,
Without Sin
, was recognized by the California Library Association as a 2013
Book to Action Award
. The award specifically recognizes a novel or non-fiction book that moves people to take action on its theme or topics.

Action was exactly what McCabe was hoping for when he decided to write
Without Sin
. He had followed news stories chronicling the so-called sex fields in the thick estuary reeds surrounding San Diego’s strawberry fields. There, girls have been lured and kidnapped across the border with promises of jobs are forced into prostitution. He thought he might bring an academic’s attention to the problem with a series of video interviews, similar to one he had completed with Pasadena students who lived in the United States since childhood but struggled with citizenship issues as they tried to complete their educations.

But as he researched the issue and began talking about his work, he realized that many listeners dismissed it as a problem relegated to illegal immigration or found the facts of the stories too grim to fathom. That’s when he decided to turn novelist.

“I thought, ‘What if I told the story through this artistic lens of fiction?’ I think people might connect with that,” he says.

Thus began the story of Angelina Marguerite, a 17-year-old prostitute entrapped in “el norte” by a drug lord.  The novel plays out along the U.S.-Mexico border and focuses on the complicated world of drug cartels and human trafficking through an against-all-odds romance between Angelina and a U.S. border patrol agent.

He wrote it first as a 90-page novella, but then it was named a Semi-Finalist in the 2011 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. That recognition inspired him to push on and make it a novel.

And he has never regretted his career in education, saying both the work and the students helped shape his writing life.

“Getting my credential and teaching opened doors for me,” he says.