The occasion is the annual bullfighting festival, at which two matadors — one an acclaimed hero of the sport, the other a scrapping contender — are prepared to fight to the death for fame and glory.

Through the memories of the book's narrator, Norman Clay, an American journalist of Spanish and Indian descent, Michener provides plenty of historical background, including a depiction of the fictitious Indian civilization that once flourished on the city's periphery.

The reader follows the bulls from their breeding to their "sorting" to the pageantry and spectacle of the bullring, where picadors and banderilleros prepare the bull for the entrance of the matador with his red cape.

Publishers Weekly gave a negative review, criticizing the characterizations and plotting, and wrote that Mexico "doesn't catch fire as a personal story.

"[2] Despite this negative review, Mexico charted at number 8 of Publishers Weekly's list bestselling books in the USA for 1992.