Summary

In the first section of this essay, La Plata Perdida, Leslie visits the silver mines of Potosi. She buys gifts for the miners and is told that they will get a cut of the money she has paid to visit. Many people in this community work in the mines for generations and the mountain is called "the mountain that eats men" (79). The mineshaft where workers spend their days is unbearable and most miners die prematurely, leaving their sons to follow in their footsteps.

The second section, Sublime, Revised, is about the reality television show Intervention that profiles addicts and attempts to get them sober. The structure of the show endorses its subject's narrative of victimhood. Leslie writes about this kind of voyeuristic television brings horror closer to its viewers but also keeps it safely at bay on the other side of the...