Showing posts with label Latino/Latina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latino/Latina. Show all posts

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Poetry: Angel Park by Roberto F. Santiago




Angel Park, the debut poetry collection by Roberto F. Santiago, explores the intersections of identity (familial, gender, sexual, racial, ethnic, spiritual, class, and linguistic) vis-à-vis the vehicles of travel, or motion from the familiar to the new, the loss of innocence that occurs within the process of maturation.
Let's get this out of the way first. I love this powerful poetry collection, Roberto F. Santiago's strong voice, and recommend Angel Park to anyone who will listen.

Now, let's get down to the book. Those few lines above are an excellent summation of what I found in Angel Park. The collection flows smoothly as it progresses throughout its three sections: Home, Away, and Far Away. That exploration of identity mentioned in the summary -- familial, gender, sexual, ethnic, spiritual, class, and linguistic -- grows stronger with each poem, in each section, and it is fabulously integrated throughout the whole collection.

Although Home holds strong ethnic and familial poems -- "Café con Abuela," "¡Canta Conquí Canta!, "A Blessing," -- they are not exclusive to this section.  Home is where it all begins, however, with family and early personal experiences as the core. The section ends on a powerful note with a few poems such as "Some Birds are Exotic", "Self-portrait of a Boy Kicked Out of His House" and "The Lexington Avenue Line: III. Castle Hill Ave." "There is a boy with teardrops for eyelashes[…]" The end to Home, organically leads to Away.

In Away, the shortest section of the collection, Santiago's poems move away from early youth, gaining strength and momentum. There is a shift which, although personal in nature, sets out to discuss the very nature of racial, class and gender issues, as well as sexual identity. This momentum continues, leading to the last section, Far Away, where Santiago ends the collection by exploring queer life through bold, vibrant poems such as: "The Day He Became Queen," and "The Ways of Men."

Angel Park has been in my possession for a long time; since last year. I have read it many times since then and keep it at my bedside. I could not review it at the time. There is a good reason for that. A poem. The last poem. Was it written for me?

For Those Left Behind

When loss is all you have
left let me remind you
at cinnamon dusk
the dead can dance.

They percuss          the thrash of hearts
                            against their chests
                            with dribble bounce
                            and ball of foot

They timpani          pulse & rattle bone of ankle to knee
                             shimmy-crescendo their hips & neck

They raise              hands like flags
                            waive them like freedoms.

In the realm of the spirit
there is life, and then there is
consciousness. A stillness
of breath condensed

on top of another
like fermented prayer
I can hold in my hands
as the snow crashes down

take comfort in knowing
endings are never
as final as they sound.
This, too, shall pass.

--------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Roberto F. Santiago has an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University and is a Coordinator of Post-Secondary Education in San Francisco. He is a Lambda Literary Scholar and past recipient of the Alfred C. Carey Prize for Poetry. He lives in Oakland.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice ed. Francisco X. Alarcón, Odilia Galván Rodríguez

On April 20, 2010, nine Latino students chained themselves to the main doors of the Arizona State Capitol in an act of civil disobedience to protest Arizona’s SB 1070. Moved by the students’ actions, that same day Francisco X. Alarcón responded by writing a poem in Spanish and English titled “Para Los Nueve del Capitolio/ For the Capitol Nine,” which he dedicated to the students. The students replied to the poem with a collective online message. To share with the world what was taking place, Alarcón then created a Facebook page called “Poets Responding to SB 1070” and posted the poem, launching a powerful and dynamic forum for social justice.

Since then, more than three thousand original contributions by poets and artists from around the globe have been posted to the page. Poetry of Resistance offers a selection of these works, addressing a wide variety of themes, including racial profiling, xenophobia, cultural misunderstanding, violence against refugees, shared identity, and much more. Bringing together more than eighty writers, the anthology powerfully articulates the need for change and the primacy of basic human rights. Each poem shows the heartfelt dedication these writers and artists have to justice in a world that has become larger than borders.

Poetry of Resistance is a poetic call for tolerance, reflection, reconciliation, and healing.
The events that occurred in Arizona in 2010, and Arizona's SB 1070, were the subject of extensive discussions and debates at my home and among friends and family. As immigrants, none of us took these events lightly, particularly since at the time it seemed to be setting a dangerous precedent that would affect the civil rights of a large percentage of the population. As a result, I found myself identifying with many of the poems included in Poetry of Resistance.

In today's toxic and divisive political atmosphere, this powerful poetry volume is both relevant and sorely needed. Perhaps more so than ever.

As an example, I've chosen to highlight one of my many favorite poems.
OLMECAN EYES

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Olmecan eyes gaze into the future,
a path of light piercing the forest,
heavy lidded with the past, ancient
sorrows carved into stone. With rain,
the present leaks into now, into the DNA
of fallen stars, the mystery of oceans
the settled silt of settling into culture

Olmecan eyes reborn. The infant
stone unfurling in our navels.
Another civilization reconquers
the wilderness of today. Sun devouring
Earth, we are shadows of the way
we were, beneath the shifting planets,
the comets, the desolate inconsolable moon.

Into the history of obsidian blades,
a human heart beats on the plate,
the slate of our division thinning
into someone's blood. The blood of
The People surging still beneath
the pursed lips, the pierced tongue,
the sudden pulse. We are The People

still. Our constitution stolen
from us in the fear. We rise, not
vengeful, but full of the peace
of knowing, our present tense.

------------

Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate: "Borders can be overcome with the revolutionary tenderness of poems. This anthology is an incredible assemblage of voices and letters that proves that collective poetry is the answer to the violence-filled policies that increasingly face us in these times."

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Non-Fiction: The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood by Richard Blanco

The way my January reading has progressed is interesting. I'm reading books I wanted to read in 2014, mostly mainstream fiction, non-fiction, or literary fiction, that have been lingering in my Kindle since 2014. Books like The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood by Richard Blanco (September 30, 2014, Ecco).

In 2013, Blanco was the fifth, youngest, first Latino, immigrant and openly gay writer to be chosen as inaugural poet of United States. He read the original poem One Today. With The Prince of Los Cocuyos, Blanco veers from poetry on to the realm of creative non-fiction. He takes a collection of linked short stories that when assembled become a partial biographical tale focusing on Blanco's childhood in Miami where his exiled Cuban family settled.

Blanco chooses slices from his childhood -- moments, memories -- and gives the reader an understanding of the Cuban exile's experience and culture in Miami beginning in the early 1970's. These slices or memories are separated into chapters, each with a title. "The First Real San Giving Day," in which as a little boy Riqui yearns for a real American experience during the Thanksgiving holiday and manipulates his grandmother into making it happen, contains much of what is found throughout this book to make it work. There are funny moments, but it also presents a portrait of the immigrant's experience from an intimate perspective, one that is also encased in frustration and nostalgia.

Nostalgia is the recurring theme. Blanco attempts to understand the seemingly perennial sense of nostalgia that surrounds the Cuban exile community by exploring or dissecting different events that take place in his personal life. However, Blanco also explores the effects cultural differences and language barrier have on an immigrant community, specifically how isolation from the mainstream and fear of the unknown prevents individuals from moving outside the "safety zone" their community represents. Additionally, he goes on to show the frustration and ambivalence of children growing up with two strong cultures pushing and pulling at them. Children who need to be part of the mainstream American culture, yet  want to understand their parents, their love of the 'old country' and cultural traditions.

An excellent example of this effect can be found in "El Ratoncito Miguel," one of the funniest, most touching chapters of the book. Riqui leaves Miami for the first time on a trip to Disney World with his parents and brother. Away from the "safety zone," Riqui's father becomes self-conscious and less confident. Riqui and his brother take control of situations for their parents because they speak English and later, when necessary, both become their parents' protectors. This is a sort of role reversal that many children with monolingual parents experience early on.

On the amusing side of things, in this same chapter Blanco also introduces his mother's "por si las moscas" (meaning or taking the place of "por si acaso" or "just in case") tote bag where she carries the most unexpected items -- some embarrassing, others dangerous. This "in case of flies bag," which Blanco translates literally, becomes a recurring joke throughout the rest of the book. The literal translation makes it even funnier in the context of the stories. Blanco translates most of the Spanish words he uses in the book, and uses literal translations for many of the Cuban sayings -- what he refers to in a later chapter as "Cubichi speech" or Cubanisms.

In one of my favorite chapters, "Queen of the Copa," Miami's glamorous history is integrated along with Miami's diminishing Jewish community, which Blanco uses to further explore the nostalgia theme. And throughout the entire book, including the remaining chapters, "It takes un Pueblo," "Listening to Mermaids," and "El Farito," Blanco also incorporates early difficulties encountered with family, community, and himself while coming to terms with his sexuality. His grandmother, a fierce woman who held old-fashioned, homophobic views, makes a particularly strong impact:
"it's better to be it and not look like it, than to look like it even if you are not it." 
From a personal perspective, I found myself relating strongly to quite a few of the circumstances Blanco portrays in this book. Looking at The Prince of Los Cocuyos from a bit of a distance, I found his storytelling to be touching, insightful, and hysterically funny at times with a bit too much emphasis placed on the nostalgia factor. The book as a whole comes across as genuine, heartfelt, and extremely intimate, depicting strengths and weaknesses in his family, himself, as well as in his community. As a great companion read, I recommend Blanco's poetry volume Looking for the Gulf Motel.


Friday, April 18, 2014

Adiós Gabo! García Márquez (March 6, 1927 - April 17, 2014)


Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, born March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia, winner of the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, best known as the father of magical realism, and his great works One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), died yesterday, April 17, 2014.

Gabriel García Márquez has always been one of my all-time favorite authors. At the tender age of eleven, his works were my introduction to Latin American literature and magical realism. When I first read Cien Años de Soledad or One Hundred of Solitud, Macondo was a place that my mind and heart immediately recognized, so that perhaps it inhabited a very personal inner space in my memory longer than it should have. I was too young to really understand the complete scope of his novel at the time, yet I was so dazzled by it! I have since reread the novel many times in Spanish, and later the English translation.

For many years, in my eyes, works by other talented authors did not measure up to this giant's talent. But then, nothing compares to that first author who opens the mind and heart of a youngster to something new and brilliant, and for me, García Márquez will forever be incomparable.

Adiós Gabo!


"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo. Macondo era entonces una aldea de veinte casas de barro y cañabrava construidas a la orilla de un río de aguas diáfanas que se precipitaban por un lecho de piedras pulidas, blancas y enormes como huevos prehistóricos. El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo."
MACONDO


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Review: Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez


Tim Z. Hernandez bases his novel Mañana Means Heaven on the story of Bea Franco, the young Chicana woman Jack Karouac meets while on his way to Los Angeles from San Francisco, during his travels across the United States, and who later appears in his famed novel On the Road as Terry, or "the Mexican girl."
"Mañana," she said. "Everything'll be all right tomorrow, don't you think, Sal-honey, man?"

"Sure, baby, mañana." It was always mañana. For the next week, that was all I heard --- mañana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven. -- On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The title of the novel is taken directly from one of the passages of Karouac's novel, but this is Bea's story, not Jack's. That is made perfectly clear from the beginning. Hernandez takes Karouac's short chapter, and following the same timeline, cleverly weaves in Bea's background and breaths life into the woman by exposing the extreme emotional and familial circumstances that pushed her into opening up to a man like Jack, a gavacho "college boy," during that particular time in her life. A time that lasted but a blink in time, but one that changed both of their lives irrevocably.

Meeting Jack gives Bea hope while she is trapped in what seems like a hopeless and desperate situation that Hernandez utilizes to build tension throughout his novel. Franco's short time with Jack changes her. It gives her the determination and resiliency that may have been there all along, but that she learns to use to become a woman who expects better for and from herself. For Jack, much later that moment in time becomes the stepping stone that helps to propel his career as a writer when the Paris Review publishes his short story "Terry, the Mexican Girl," and well, the rest is history.

If Franco and her family are well researched by Hernandez, then so are the historical details. Hernandez takes the reader to a post WWII Los Angeles that comes alive with all of its paranoia and multicultural prejudices. But nothing comes alive more than the San Joaquin Valley and the plight of the pickers -- the smell and paranoia in the tent camps, the fear of immigration raids, the hatred for the implacable owners and the need for work, the child workers, the stultifying poverty, and through Bea, the desperation.

Hernandez utilizes mañana, tomorrow, as the main theme of his novel. The word mañana represents many different things to the different people who inhabit the novel. To Bea and her brother Alex it represents the possibility of a future and the realization of a dream. To the pickers in Selma it represents the basics, work, food, a warm place to stay. If not today, tomorrow things will work out. To Jack it is always a way to gain time, to learn more, to see more. To little Albert, it comes to represent lack of money, a lack of hope. However, Hernandez also uses partings, abandonment, leaving and returning as a secondary and more subtle theme throughout the novel.

As an award winning poet and writer familiar with Franco's cultural background, Hernandez was already well equipped to write a story about Karouac's muse. However, Hernandez's research into her life and his insights into the person Franco was, into the woman she became, takes her story beyond that of a myth. Highly recommended.

_____________________

Memorable Quote from Tim Z. Hernandez's Guest Post: "I Remain As Ever, Bea"
I spoke briefly about what Bea had taught me, and about what we might all learn from her story. That each of us, regardless of how seemingly insignificant or boring or obscure our lives may be, are made up of valuable epic stories that deserve their day in the light.

Related Posts:
Guest Author Tim Z. Hernandez: "I Remain As Ever, Bea"
RIP Bea Franco, Kerouac's "Terry, The Mexican Girl"
Highlighting: Manana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Guest Author Tim Z. Hernandez: "I Remain as Ever, Bea"

Today, I would like to extend a big welcome to Tim Z. Hernandez, author of Mañana Means Heaventhe story of Bea Franco who for years was only known as Terry, the "Mexican girl" from Jack Karouac's On the Road.
Mañana Means Heaven deftly combines fact and fiction to pull back the veil on one of literature’s most mysterious and evocative characters. Inspired by Franco’s love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez’s interviews with Franco, now in her nineties and living in relative obscurity, the novel brings this lost gem of a story out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

Franco was sought out by dozens of Kerouac and Beat scholars, but none could find her. According to one, “finding Bea Franco is like trying to find the ghost of a needle in haystack.”
Well, Tim Z. Hernandez found the "needle in the haystack" and wrote a book that has received high praise from The Associated Press, Booklist and others, and that I am sure will continue to do so.

On a personal note, when The University of Arizona Press contacted me about the upcoming release of Mañana Means Heaven I was immediately taken in by the synopsis. It just captures the imagination. Later, as I was in the middle of reading Bea Franco's journey through life, I was quite shocked and saddened to learn that she had passed away.

Today is the last day in a week-long blog tour. By following the tour, you will find real insight into Tim's research by listening to interviews, reading notes from his journal, excellent question and answer sessions, or if you prefer, there are also book excerpts available.

For his last stop today, however, Hernandez chose to write a very personal post about Bea.

Blog Tour:
Monday, September 16 | Stephanie Nikolopoulos blog 
Tuesday, September 17 | The Daily Beat 
Wednesday, September 18 | La Bloga 
Thursday, September 19 | The Big Idea 
Friday, September 20 | The Dan O’Brien Project 

Welcome Tim!
______________________




I Remain as Ever, Bea

On the morning of August 15, 2013 I received a text from Albert Franco, Bea's son, telling me in only a few abbreviated words that his mother had passed away. This news took the breath out of me. It was unexpected, to say the least. I had just recently spoken with Patricia, Bea's daughter, who Bea had been staying with in Long Beach. My family and I were making plans to see her while we were going to be in California. At the time, Patricia said something to the effect of, "My mother's been doing much better lately and I'm sure she'd like to see you." So my wife and I began planning. Just a few days earlier, on August 3, after receiving copies of my book in the mail from my publisher, I hurried to the post office and sent Bea a package, which included a signed copy of the book, her book, along with a bound photo album I had made her, compiled with all the photos and documents her family had loaned me during the writing of her book. Days later Patricia called to tell me the package had arrived and how excited they all were. I asked if she wouldn' t mind taking a few pictures of Bea holding her book, and she agreed. On August 7, I received several text messages from Patricia's daughter Dina, images of Bea smiling with her copy of Mañana Means Heaven in her hands. She had that same curious glint in her eye that I had come to know, as if to say, it's about time! Of course, in that moment we had no idea that these photographs would become the only evidence that Bea did in fact live to see her life story told in the pages of a book. No longer merely the fictional "Mexican girl" of Kerouac's imagination, or the quiet and unassuming campesina that appeared for all of two minutes in Walter Salles' movie, On the Road, but Beatrice Renteria Franco, now Bea Kozera, the real woman, the real deal.


On the very day Mañana Means Heaven was to land on the shelves of bookstores across the nation, Thursday August 29, a handful of friends and family gathered at the idyllic Belmont Memorial Park in Fresno, California to pay their last respects to this "petite woman with fire in her heart," as one of Bea's relatives remarked. For the better part of three years, it seemed every member of my family was also invested in Bea's story. (It was my mother who actually located her whereabouts back in 2010. After telling her I was about to give up my search for Bea and just get on with the book, she replied, "Give me your files and notes, I'll find her!" 24 hours later, she handed me two possible leads.) Even my cousin Art, when I went to visit him in the pen the first thing out of his mouth was, "Have you finished your book about the Mexican girl?" And of course, so many times my wife Dayanna had watched me return from my interviews with Bea beaming with excitement. Like this, my family, even our children, became familiar with Bea; through our visits with her, through the myriad photos which hung on the wall above my desk as I wrote the book, through the sound of Bea's own tender voice played back on my video camera, for three solid years we lived with her presence. Needless to say, at her services, we were all there together. I was asked by her son Albert to share a few words, and so I spoke briefly about what Bea had taught me, and about what we might all learn from her story. That each of us, regardless of how seemingly insignificant or boring or obscure our lives may be, are made up of valuable epic stories that deserve their day in the light. Standing at the podium, I concluded my thoughts by sharing one small but very cool detail about Bea. Over the years she had enjoyed writing letters and postcards to people, and she had a distinct way of signing off. I could clearly see that curious glint in her eye shine, each time she assured her reader, "I Remain as Ever, Bea."


Tim Z. Hernandez, copyright 2013
______________________


Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez
Released: August 29, 2013
The University of Arizona Press
In this love story of impossible odds, award-winning writer Tim Z. Hernandez weaves a rich and visionary portrait of Bea Franco, the real woman behind famed American author Jack Kerouac’s “The Mexican Girl.” Set against an ominous backdrop of California in the 1940s, deep in the agricultural heartland of the Great Central Valley, Mañana Means Heaven reveals the desperate circumstances that lead a married woman to an illicit affair with an aspiring young writer traveling across the United States.

When they meet, Franco is a migrant farmworker with two children and a failing marriage, living with poverty, violence, and the looming threat of deportation, while the “college boy” yearns to one day make a name for himself in the writing world. The significance of their romance poses vastly different possibilities and consequences.

Mañana Means Heaven deftly combines fact and fiction to pull back the veil on one of literature’s most mysterious and evocative characters. Inspired by Franco’s love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez’s interviews with Franco, now in her nineties and living in relative obscurity, the novel brings this lost gem of a story out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
About the Author: Tim Z. Hernandez is a poet, novelist, and performance artist whose awards include the 2006 American Book Award, the 2010 Premio Aztlan Prize in Fiction, and the James Duval Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. He is the author of two books of poetry, Natural Takeover of Small Things (2013) and Skin Tax, and the novels Mañana Means Heaven (2013) and Breathing in Dust. In 2011 the Poetry Society of America named him one of sixteen New American Poets. He holds a BA from Naropa University and an MFA from Bennington College.

Visit Tim Z. Hernandez here.
Buy the book here.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Reading Lots! CarnieFun, Tim Z. Hernandez, Elliott Mackle & Summer Lovin'

Carniepunk Anthology
Release Date: July 23, 2013
Gallery Books
Come one, come all! The Carniepunk Midway promises you every thrill and chill a traveling carnival can provide. But fear not! Urban fantasy’s biggest stars are here to guide you through this strange and dangerous world. . . .

RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in “Painted Love.”
I'm enjoying this anthology. It has a long list of stories by accomplished urban fantasy authors. Those stories so far are a combination of standalone and short stories related to already established series with carnivals as the central focus, however, they couldn't be more different. Clowns, you ask? I am about half-way through the book and so far no clowns, but the setting gives this anthology a certain dark flavor that I am enjoying.

Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez
Release Date: August 29, 2013
The University of Arizona Press
In this love story of impossible odds, award-winning writer Tim Z. Hernandez weaves a rich and visionary portrait of Bea Franco, the real woman behind famed American author Jack Kerouac’s “The Mexican Girl.” Set against an ominous backdrop of California in the 1940s, deep in the agricultural heartland of the Great Central Valley, Mañana Means Heaven reveals the desperate circumstances that lead a married woman to an illicit affair with an aspiring young writer traveling across the United States.

When they meet, Franco is a migrant farmworker with two children and a failing marriage, living with poverty, violence, and the looming threat of deportation, while the “college boy” yearns to one day make a name for himself in the writing world. The significance of their romance poses vastly different possibilities and consequences.

Mañana Means Heaven deftly combines fact and fiction to pull back the veil on one of literature’s most mysterious and evocative characters. Inspired by Franco’s love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez’s interviews with Franco, now in her nineties and living in relative obscurity, the novel brings this lost gem of a story out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
This is a book that got my attention at "The Mexican Girl" and Jack Kerouac. It combines fact and fiction, but I must admit that my curiosity about "Terry's" character or as it turns out, Bea Franco, got the best of me as soon as I read the book summary. So far it is more than worth the read!

Welcome Home, Captain Harding by Elliott Mackle
Series: Captain Harding, #3
Release Date: September 1, 2013
Lethe Press Books

Returning to California after eighteen terrifying months in Vietnam, Captain Joe Harding is assigned a trio of duties: assisting his fatherly former commander at base operations, spying on misbehaving bomber pilots and organizing an air show designed to counter the anti-war fever sweeping the state.

Meanwhile, his much younger tennis partner has enrolled at Cal Berkeley, enmeshed himself in pacifist politics and resumed his role as Joe's lover. When a playmate from Wheelus, a one-time fighter pilot now flying for TWA, shows up at Joe's house in Merced, the three men must navigate the joys and difficulties inherent in creating their own sort of ''welcome home.''

Continuing the adventures and misadventures begun in Elliott Mackle's acclaimed Captain Harding series Joe and his fellow officers and men are up against a hot-dogging, risk-taking aircraft commander, a pair of drug-abusing co-pilots and a married administrator with a taste for sexual blackmail. When a Broadway show causes a death in the family, a test flight goes terribly wrong and Joe's honor and patriotism are questioned, he must fight to clear his name and rebuild his imperiled career.
Welcome Home, Captain Harding is the last book in the Captain Harding trilogy by Elliott Mackle. I absolutely love this character, and so far I've loved the first and second books! I'm really enjoying this last book, Joe is still Joe. *g* But, I'm also a bit sad that Joe's adventures are coming to an end.
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What else have I been reading?

I've yet to move on from my summer reading and picked up Summer Lovin' with Chrissy Munder, Clare London, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, and Lou Harper (Pink Squirrel Press, 2013). This is an M/M Romance collection with five novellas. So far I really enjoyed Chrissy Munder's "Summer Hire" and loved "Lost and Found on Lindisfarne" by JL Merrow. I'm reading this one slowly and in between other books. . . stretching out the summer fun!

Summer is here, and the loving is easy! Slake your thirst for romance with Summer Lovin'—an anthology for lazy days and summer sunshine.

Go skinny-dipping in a disused quarry. Hang out with the boys in the band. Meet a bad boy made good, and one with a shy smile that hides a dark secret. Or maybe get your heart pillaged by a Viking re-enactor.

With gentle humor, hot sauce and a hefty scoop of romance, enjoy a quintet of sultry stories of men loving men from Clare London, Chrissy Munder, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, and Lou Harper.

The mercury's not the only thing that's rising!


What are you reading?

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Highlighting: Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez

Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez
Publication Date: August 29, 2013
Camino del Sol: A Latina and Latino Literary Series

The University of Arizona Press


Tim Z. Hernandez lifts the veil on one of literature’s most mysterious and evocative characters.

Readers across the world know Jack Kerouac and his famous novel, On the Road, but most don’t know that prior to its publication, Kerouac received countless rejections. It wasn’t until an excerpt titled “The Mexican Girl” was published in The Paris Review, earned rave reviews, and found its way into the Best American Short Stories of 1956 anthology that the novel was accepted for publication.

Given the relevance that “The Mexican Girl” had in Kerouac’s career, little has been known about the real “Terry,” actually Bea Franco. In Mañana Means Heaven, acclaimed writer Tim Z. Hernandez pulls Bea from out of the shadows and presents a rich and visionary novel portraying the woman behind the scenes in the novel that defined a generation. As author Paul Maher says, “Hernandez offers a dazzling offshoot from the oft-explored road story that is Kerouac’s.”

Set against an ominous backdrop of California in the 1940s, deep in the agricultural heartland of the Great Central Valley, Hernandez’s novel reveals the desperate circumstances that led a married woman to an illicit affair with an aspiring young writer traveling across the United States. When they meet, Franco is a migrant farmworker with two children and a failing marriage, living with poverty, violence, and the looming threat of deportation, while the “college boy” yearns to one day make a name for himself in the writing world. The significance of their romance poses vastly different possibilities and consequences.

Franco was sought out by dozens of Kerouac and Beat scholars, but none could find her. According to one, “finding Bea Franco is like trying to find the ghost of a needle in haystack.”

But 55 years after publication of Kerouac’s novel, Hernandez discovered Franco alive, and living in relative obscurity only one mile from his own home in Fresno, California. “It was an alignment, really, that I was able to find her. It just so happened that I knew where to look and who to ask. I have since been fortunate to develop a strong relationship with her and her family."

Based on Franco’s love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez’s interviews with Franco, the novel Mañana Means Heaven brings this lost gem of a story into the spotlight. Featuring a foreword and afterword chronicling Hernandez’s personal quest to find Franco, this novel deftly combines fact and fiction to lift the veil on a character who has lived far too long in the shadows.

----------
Tim Z. Hernandez is a poet, novelist, and performance artist whose awards include the 2006 American Book Award, the 2010 Premio Aztlán Prize in Fiction, and the James Duval Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. In 2011 the Poetry Society of America named him one of sixteen New American Poets. He holds a BA from Naropa University and an MFA from Bennington College and is the author of the novel Breathing, In Dust, as well as three collections of poetry, including the recently released Natural Takeover of Small Things. Learn more at his website, www.timzhernandez.com.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Poetry: Looking for The Gulf Motel by Richard Blanco

I finally read Richard Blanco's collection of poems, Looking for The Gulf Motel. Simply said, I connected with Blanco's poetry, his search for cultural identity and love of family. These are the notes I wrote right after reading the book: Blanco uses a narrative style in this emotional biographical piece that touched and in some ways soothed me. I recognized and connected with many of his personal conflicts as the child of a loving, if tough and judgmental, immigrant Cuban family. I laughed in some places, but strongly felt his emotional anguish and nostalgia in others. This is a book I will definitely re-read.

However, although in the first section of the book Blanco explores his childhood, family relationships, and Cuban cultural ties, the second section is dedicated to struggles with family, sexual identity, and the gay lifestyle, while the last section turns introspective and is dedicated to loss, particularly the loss of those family members who are irreplaceable not only because they are deeply loved, but also because they maintain necessary cultural ties alive and kicking.

As the introductory poem to the first section of the book where Blanco features poems about his childhood, "Looking for The Gulf Motel" is particularly memorable. In this poem, Blanco searches for a place where with his parents and brother, he once spent a happy, almost idyllic vacation by the sea. He finds that although happy memories remain, everything changes with time and loss. "[. . .] I want to find The Gulf Motel exactly as it was / and pretend for a moment, nothing lost is lost."

In that first section where Blanco explores and searches for cultural identity, his poem "The Name I Wanted:" is a classic example of cultural ambivalence, and "Betting on America" brought back personal childhood memories, the last line of the poem in particular "¿Donde está Ohio?" is just classic! However, it is in "Cousin Consuelo, On Piano" that Blanco truly captures the sense of displacement felt by a first generation of children born to immigrants.
Cousin Consuelo, On Piano

[. . .]¡Guantanamera! . . .
I had to listen to my grandmother
caterwaul, dabbing the corners of her eyes,
her voice cracking over a country I didn't
know yet that had to love like Tía Miri did,
singing about el campo I never saw yet had
to feel Consuelo's notes rising into
mountains, resting in valleys, the click of her
nail-tips on the keys like rain falling in the
room, on my father. [. . .] I had to sing with
him like a real Cuban, had to feel displaced,
broken, beautiful -- and clap for more, had to
make Consuelo play Guantanamera twice,
three times, [. . .]
In the second section with such poems as "Playing House with Pepín," "Afternoons with Endora," and "Queer Theory: According to My Grandmother," displacement is intensified by a sense of not belonging as Blanco explores struggles with sexual identity and family views. In "Love as if Love," Blanco goes further with his poem about Elizabeth. ". . . / loving as if I could lover her." But of all these, I love "Thicker Than Country" best, a poem depicting Blanco's life with and love for partner Mark after they move to Maine. The last section of the book dealing with painful loss and remembrance is specially touching and contains some of my favorite poems, ending with the gorgeous"Since Unfinished." Following is an excerpt from one of those poems:
Some Days the Sea

[. . .]
I'm still a boy on this beach, wanting
to catch a seagull, cup a tiny silver fish,
build a perfect sand castle. Some days I am
a teenager blind to death even as I watch
waves seep into nothingness. Most days
I'm a man tired of being a man, sleeping
in the care of dusk's slanted light, or a man
scared of being a man, seeing some god
in the moonlight streaming over the sea.
Some days I imagine myself walking
this shore with feet as worn as driftwood,
old and afraid of my body. Someday,
I suppose I'll return someplace like waves
trickling through the sand, back to sea
without any memory of being, but if
I could choose eternity, it would be here:
aging with the moon, enduring in the space
between every grain of sand, in the cusp
of every wave and every seashell's hollow.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

About the Author: Richard Blanco was selected as the 2013 inaugural poet for President Barack Obama. He is the author of two other poetry collections: Directions to The Beach of the Dead, winner of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award; and City of a Hundred Fires, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Exploring themes of Latino identity and place, Blanco's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2000 and Best American Prose Poems and have been featured on NPR. He is a fellow of the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, recipient of two Florida Artist Fellowships, and has taught at Georgetown and American universities. A builder of cities and poems, Blanco is also a professional civil engineer.

Category: Poetry
Series: Pitt Poetry Series
Publisher/Release Date: University of Pittsburgh Press; February 28, 2012

Read interview with Richard Blanco at La Bloga. Visit Richard Blanco here.

All poems © 2012, Richard Blanco 

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Red-Inked Retablos by Rigoberto González

Red-Inked Retablos by Rigoberto González
Cover Illustration:
The Song that Traverses a Tenebrous World
(oil on wood 10" x 16", 2008)
by Tino Rodriguez
In the Mexican Catholic tradition, retablos are ornamental structures made of carved wood framing an oil painting of a devotional image, usually a patron saint. Acclaimed author and essayist Rigoberto González commemorates the passion and the pain of these carvings in his new volume Red-Inked Retablos, a moving memoir of human experience and thought.

This frank new collection masterfully combines accounts from González’s personal life with reflections that offer an in-depth meditation of the develop of Chicano literature, gay Chicano literature and the responsibilities that being a Gay Chicana/o writer carries.

Widely acclaimed for giving a voice to the Chicano GLBT community, González’s writing spans a wide range of genres: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual books for children and young adults. Introduced by Women’s Studies professor Maythee Rojas, Retablos collects thirteen pieces that together provide a narrative of González’s life from his childhood through his career as a writer, critic, and mentor.

In Red-Inked Retablos, González continues to expand his oeuvre on mariposa (literally, “butterfly”) memory, a genre he pioneered in which Chicano/a writers openly address [non-traditional] sexuality. For González, mariposa memory is important testimony not only about reconfiguring personal identity in relation to masculinity, culture, and religion. It’s also about highlighting values like education, shaping a sex-positive discourse, and exercising agency through a public voice. It’s about making the queer experience a Chicano experience and the Chicano experience a queer one.
The thirteen essays included in this collection are presented as retablos that frame different periods of González's life and where his passions and beliefs are conveyed through prose. Red-Inked Retablos by Rigoberto González is a creative nonfiction piece that draws the reader with its honest narrative style.

In his introduction, González states: "My purpose is not to claim Truth, but to provide perspective -- mine -- and invite a response to that flawed, imperfect point of view. In the end, that is what nonfiction writing, like a cherished retablo, does best: inspire contemplation." Throughout the book, González struggles with, and confronts that imperfect point of view and flawed memory, and through his own observations and experiences invites the reader to his/her own contemplations.

González begins the first section of the collection, "Self-Portraits," with five essays based on intimate family and personal details that formed the man, organically moving on to those that formed the poet and writer in "Studies," and in "Speeches" we meet the defined gay Chicano activist and educator. The excellent conclusion to the collection, "Trinity," is an homage to the mariposa memory genre -- its past, present, and hopeful future. This section only contains one essay, "Toward a Mariposa Consciousness," divided into three parts, Butterfly (A)jar, Mariposa Lit, and Mariposa Prayer.

As a Latina who grew up as part of an immigrant family, I found myself connecting with Mr. González's experiences and thinking deeply about the "bi" of all things -- the duality that comes along with 'the bilingual and bicultural' for a young immigrant -- and the sense of not belonging here nor there. The long search for a place to belong to a place where the self feels grounded and not as if it were the eternal foreigner or passing tourist standing on the outside looking in, trying but unable to find the heart of a place instead of the superficiality that feeds a tourist's disorientation. Searching for understanding and connection through study.

It was easy then for me to understand and/or connect González's immigrant experience (and my own search for personal identity) with his passion for expanding the mariposa memory, as well as his passion for promoting education and responsibility among the Chicano/Latino and LGBTQ Latina/o communities of writers and educators to continue to use their voices. "For González, mariposa memory is important testimony not only about reconfiguring personal identity in relation to masculinity, culture, and religion. It’s also about highlighting values like education, shaping a sex-positive discourse, and exercising agency through a public voice. It’s about making the queer experience a Chicano experience and the Chicano experience a queer one."

There is little else that can be said about Red-Inked Retablos and Rigoberto González that hasn't already been said in the extremely accurate and detailed summary quoted above. I can tell you that in his collection of retablos, González's journey is written in such an honest, 'tell-it-like-it-is' style that it inspires the reader to both action and contemplation.

Category: Literary/Creative Nonfiction
Series: Camino del Sol: A Latina and Latino Literary Series
Publisher/Release Date: UA Press, March 14, 2013
Source: ARC from UA Press
Grade: B+

Visit Rigoberto González here.
----------
To give you an idea of a few books within the mariposa memory genre category so passionately promoted by Rigoberto González, you can find my reviews and/or impressions of 4 books listed in his essay "Toward a Mariposa Consciousness", Part II. Mariposa Lit. (Click on titles to read posts)

From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction ed. by Charles Rice-González & Charlie Vázquez
Chulito by Charles Rice-González
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Slow Lightning by Edward C. Corral

Monday, February 18, 2013

This n' That: Scalzi, Guy Mark Foster + Updates

Hey, how is everyone! I've been missing lately, I know, and slow in posting, but so far this has been one of those tough blogging months for me. Let's see... I had one long week of migraines that would not go away, I am still serving on Grand Jury duty every Thursday and won't be done until the end of February. That means double duty at the office. I can't seem to catch up no matter what I do! Plus, the situation with my mom seems to be deteriorating and it is both an emotionally draining and stressful time for all of us.

But you wonder if I've been reading, I have! Reading is one of those personal joys that I need to keep going. So what have I read lately? What am I reading now? I think I've chosen to read everything but "romance," and by that I mean mainstream contemporary and historical romance.

-----------


I have been keeping up with John Scalzi's new science fiction serial, The Human Division and read, Episode #3: We Only Need the Heads, and Episode #4: A Voice in the Wilderness. In We Only Need the Heads, Scalzi returns to the Ambassador's negotiating team and Harry Wilson, cleverly weaving in the events that took place in the wildcat colony featured in Walk the Plank. In A Voice in the Wilderness, Earth is the setting and readers get an inkling as to how the Colonial Union is viewed from their perspective. Political ramifications, manipulation by and of the media play a big part in this installment and I love that this episode ended with a bit of bang! I have Episode #5: Tales from the Clarke in my queue to read, but didn't get to it yet.

I'm really enjoying this serial, folks! So far Scalzi has alternated between the overall storyarc involving negotiations between the Colonial Union and different aliens and key events that affect or will affect those negotiations. So far some of the individual episodes work well on their own while others do not, and as a whole book the flow may seem a bit choppy. However, as the story moves along and revelations come to light, it works. I think that after Tales from the Clarke the story may flow better. I will let you know. So far this is a solid B read for me.

The 2013 Science Fiction Experience 
-----------
Earlier in the month I highlighted The Rest of Us: Stories by Guy Mark Foster. Foster is a gay African-American writer whose collection of gay fiction stories turned out to be fantastic. I purchased the digital edition, began to browse and ended up reading the whole book in one sitting.

The collection begins with "Boy," a short piece that sets the tone for the rest of the book, where a father explains to his son what manhood is all about, "rest the ankle of one leg on the opposite leg's knee-never cross one leg over the other's knee, and people won't too easily peg you for the punk you are right under my very roof due to become; " and ends with the amazing "Between Us," a story in letter form addressed to "Dear M" where Foster's character Mark attempts to explain to his former white lover why he tends to push people away. Foster's character explains that in addition to being black and gay he also has to "navigate the ever present complexities" of racial history: "simply being a human being presents a whole host of conflicts, but to be gay and of African descent in our society only increases those conflicts."

In between, Foster's wonderful collection of stories captures the social and cultural complexities of growing up as a gay African-American male while dealing with difficult family issues, religion, racial differences, racism, homophobia, and snapshots of men who continue to love men regardless of the obstacles. Highly recommended, this was an A- read for me.

-----------

Then, I got all caught up reading Jordan Castillo Price's addicting PsyCop series. Now, some of the books in this series have been sitting in my eReader for years. No kidding. So yeah... I gloamed and read: Among the Living #1, Criss Cross #2, Secrets #3, Body & Soul #4, Camp Hell #5, GhosTV, Book #6 plus the novellas Many Happy ReturnsStriking Sparks and In the Dark, to complete my reading experience. As you can imagine, I really enjoyed that experience, otherwise I would not have read all of these books consecutively. Expect an overview of the whole series soon!

I'm not done with Jordan Castillo Price yet. I'm planning on reading more of her series, plus Hermovore. All books already in my Kindle. Can't wait!

------------
I began but have not finished The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke. I really wanted to concentrate on that book and unfortunately my migraines hit while I was in the middle of it and I had to place it aside for another time. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone suffered the same fate. This is a book that has been sitting in my Kindle since last year and I was enjoying it so much! But, I really needed the time to concentrate on the world building which is quite intricate and unfortunately my head was not in the right place to do so. So I will be reading it at another time. Hopefully soon.

------------
What Am I Reading Now?



Two upcoming March releases: In Search Of and Others is a collection of speculative fiction stories by Will Ludwigsen that's working perfectly for me at this time because I can read and enjoy a few stories at a time in between other books. I will let you know how it turns out when I'm done, but there are some great stories in this collection so far.

The other book I'm reading is Rigoberto González's upcoming creative nonfiction release from UA Press, Red-Inked Retablos. This is another book that I'm thoroughly enjoying. It is totally different from my other reads in that it is nonfiction, but because the book is essentially a collection of distinct essays it can also be read slowly. So far a great read.

That's it for now folks! Hope those of you in the U.S. are enjoying President's Day.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Poetry: Natural Takeover of Small Things by Tim Z. Hernandez

Natural Takeover of Small Things
by Tim Z. Hernandez
Natural Takeover of Small Things by Tim Z. Hernandez is an intimate portrayal of life in California's San Joaquin Valley with all its beauty and exposed flaws. Mr. Hernandez's poetry is personal and while some poems are rendered with deeply moving, lyrical and rhythmic prose, others are rather straight forward, raw and cutting in nature. There is no real place for nostalgia in Hernandez's memories of "home;" instead there is realism filled with love and care in the shaping of moments, places and people who live and die in the valley -- from campesinos who work the land to those who become collateral damage.

The culture of the West and Western Latino culture permeate Hernandez's poetry. Readers experience the pride embodied by hardworking men and women, as well as substandard living conditions, wasted lives, and personal loses. But there is also taste and smell to savor in Hernandez's poetry: menudo, lengua, the fruits of the valley, the earthy smell of the campo -- the beauty and the tragedy.

This 80 page book is divided into three sections: The Arms in Dead Heat, San Joaquin Sutra, and Natural Takeover of Small Things.

I. Arms in Dead Heat includes memories of life in the San Joaquin Valley beginning with the poem that hooked me, Home:
Fresno is the inexhaustible nerve
in the twitching leg of a dog [...]
II. San Joaquin Sutra describes the beauty and the tragedy;
[...]
San Joaquin Valley,
where tired faces water quaint gardens with cut hoses,
bending to bury
the corn next to the sugarcane, reaching
for the avocado on the highest branch,
the melon's elusive fragrance
in all directions toward all the windows in all the houses on all the streets,
sweet invisible nectars drifting
in vastness of big sky
where taunts a kite
broken free
of its
strings.

☀ ☀ ☀
San Joaquin -
where sickly bodies of old Texan mothers draped in aprons of sunflower
and waning seasons sit idly by, waiting for some slick cancer to escort
their last days to proms of disintegration, while the souls of
amputated limbs
twitch anxious habits for workloads of the waiting day, [...]
III. Natural Takeover of Small Things is full of reflections on those little details that make up life and bring eventual death, the letting go of one life to begin another. Adios, Fresno says is all . . .
Adios, Fresno
You could use more letters of love.
Here, take these. You owe me nothing, except back pay.
But I won't mention it again.
Trust me when I say I'll have no regrets leaving you. [...]
----------

About the Author: Tim Z. Hernandez is a poet, novelist, and performance artist whose awards include the 2006 American Book Award, the 2010 Premio Aztlan Prize in Fiction, and the James Duval Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. He is the author of a previous book of poetry, Skin Tax, and the novel Breathing in Dust. In 2011 the Poetry Society of America named him one of sixteen New American Poets. His novel of historical fiction, Mañana Means Heaven, based on the life of Bea Franco, will release in Fall of 2013. He holds a BA from Naropa University and an MFA from Bennington College.

Category: Poetry
Series: Camino del Sol: A Latina and Latino Literary Series
ARC provided by Publisher: The University of Arizona Press
Publication Date: February 21, 2013

All poetry quotes taken from Natural Takeover of Small Things by Tim Z. Hernandez. © Tim Z. Hernandez, 2013.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Review: This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz

This Is How You Lose Her
by Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz's third book, This Is How You Lose Her, follows his 2008 Pulitzer winning novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Yet, with this third book, he returns to a familiar format, world and characters his readers first encountered in his first collection of short stories, Drown.

This time, although again the Dominican immigrant's experience is very much an intrinsic part of his stories, the main theme is infidelity. Using a distinctly male point of view, language that is prosaic and, at times, beautiful, with these nine stories Díaz depicts a critical and distinctly honest portrait of Dominican males and a Latino machista culture bred on infidelity, as per his observations.

Díaz's now familiar character Yunior, brother Rafa, his boys and their women serve as his instruments. The stories, with narrative and dialog from the males' perspectives, are raw in content, and the language is so realistic that oftentimes they leave the reader with a feeling of discomfort. 

Frankly most women in these short stories, even the ones who are supposedly loved, are described in sexual terms or as sexual objects. However when placed into perspective, I believe that Mr. Díaz has written a disturbingly honest account of men with a learned sense of entitlement that leads to cheating on partners in a machista Latino culture where manliness in proven through sexual exploits. (Personally, I've always thought of this phenomenon as male insecurity and have argued this point countless times) Díaz shows how boys learn, by example and encouragement, to become the same type of men who cheated on their mothers, aunts and sisters by emulating their fathers, brothers, and friends, even as they initially reject and hate those same men for their actions.

Women are not necessarily spared. Yes, there are the women who are being cheated on. Most of the stories are named after them: Nilda, Alma, Flaca, The Pura Principle, Miss Lora, -- but there are also those women who knowingly become part of the infidelity cycle -- the sucias, as Yunior calls them. Actions in this collection have consequences as is evident by the title. And then there's one of my favorite stories of the collection, the only one written from a female's perspective: Otravida, Otravez.

In Otravida, Otravez an immigrant woman working as a laundress for a hospital has been conducting a long-term affair with a married man whose wife lives in the Dominican Republic. Díaz captures the hardworking woman's tough life, but also her lack of expectations when it comes to this long-term relationship. There's also a sense of displacement and "not belonging" about this woman, both in terms of the relationship and place (as the immigrant). A need to feel settled and safe and the inability to find that safety, as well as the expectation of being abandoned, let down, and ultimately unfulfilled. This restlessness, the lack of expectations, and the sense of displacement are all found throughout the stories. The book ends with a bang with what I consider the strongest piece of the collection, The Cheater's Guide to Love an honest, fascinating, and intimate look into a man's life after he loses the love of his life. There's almost a sense of the autobiographical that makes this particular story even more intriguing.

Mr. Díaz's grasp of multiple settings -- New Jersey, the Dominican Republic, Boston -- and Dominican/Latino culture is impressive in its authenticity, the details more than show that he has personal knowledge of both. It is important to note that I specify Dominican/Latino culture in this case, as there are some aspects of these stories that particularly apply to the Dominican culture. However this behavior and/or way of thinking should, if not in general terms at least partly, be applied to males in the Latino machista culture as a whole.

I am a bit conflicted about This Is How You Lose Her, but that is only because Mr. Díaz returns to Yunior and the Drown setting. I was hoping for radically different content from him in this new book. However, and here's where my conflict comes in, the theme is fresh, pertinent and controversial even if the format, characters, and setting are familiar. The problem is that because of the familiarity and/or similarities, This Is How You Lose Her invites comparison to Drown, and as a collection in my opinion Drown is a tighter, better flowing short story collection.

Having said that, Díaz's writing style is consistently powerful with a rhythm and vibrancy that keep the reader engaged, although frankly in this collection there are some stories that stand out more than others. He continues to pepper his works with Spanish, slang, and brutally raw street language combined with a beautiful turn of phrase that define him. The subject matters addressed in his books continue to challenge readers' comfort zones -- a fact evident in This Is How You Lose Her.

On a personal note, some of these stories have previously been published in The New Yorker and some might have read them before, however, as a collection with a theme, this is a book that I've already recommended to family and friends, both males and females. We've already begun discussing and debating its content from all points of view. Whether you love them or hate them, the very nature and frankness of Junot Díaz's short stories lend themselves to vigorous and passionate discussion, and to me that's always a sign of a book worth reading.

Category: Literary Fiction
Series: None
Publisher/Release Date: Riverhead/September 11, 2012 - Kindle Ed.
Grade: B

Other works reviewed:
Drown

Friday, June 8, 2012

Author Spotlight: Lee Thomas, Jan Steckel, Eduardo C. Corral

On June 4th, the 24th Annual Lambda Literary Award winners were announced. Congratulations to all the winners! I was particularly happy to see winners from LGBT dedicated small print presses like Lethe Press, Bold Strokes Books and MLR Press.

Today, however, I'm highlighting two winners whose works I read and highly recommended because they were both such excellent reads: Lee Thomas whose book The German was on my 2011 top ten favorite books list, and Jan Steckel whose poetry book The Horizontal Poet I particularly enjoyed reading earlier this year.

Lee Thomas - The German (Lethe Press, 2011)
A finalist for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Science-fiction/Fantasy/Horror title.

Set during the height of World War II, The German examines the effect a series of ritualistic murders has on a small, Texas community. A killer preys on the young men of Barnard, Texas, leaving cryptic notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own, who is trying to escape a violent past.

Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
Lee Thomas is the Bram Stoker Award and the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Stained, Parish Damned, Damage, The Dust of Wonderland, and In The Closet, Under The Bed. His latest novel The German was released to critical acclaim in March, 2011.

Lee currently lives in Austin, TX, where he's working on a number of projects.

✥✥✥✥

Jan Steckel - The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011)
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction title.


Jan Steckel is an Oakland, California writer, a Harvard- and Yale-trained former pediatrician (now retired due to an acquired physical disability), and an activist for bisexual and disability rights. Her first poetry chapbook, The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006), garnered critical acclaim and won the Rainbow Award for lesbian and bisexual poetry. She won the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award, and Gertrude published her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks.

Her fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Yale Medicine, Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, Red Rock Review and elsewhere. She has won numerous awards, and her work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, Hew Wolff.

The Horizontal Poet is her first full-length poetry book. (Zeitgeist Press, 2011).

Congrats to both!

✥✥✥✥

And since I'm highlighting winners, LGBTQ authors, and it seems as if poetry is in the air, here is a bit of information about a poetry book I read this past week by Eduardo C. Corral, Slow Lightning. (actually my husband and I read this book together and to each other) Although I'm highlighting a tiny excerpt from his amazing poem "Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso," I'll quickly say that "Variation On A Theme by José Montoya" is by far my (and my husband's) favorite section of the book. Carl Phillips words from the Foreword describe Corral's style quite eloquently. This is an "A grade/5 star" read for me -- one I'll be enjoying for a while -- and a book that I highly recommend.

Slow Lightning by Eduardo C. Corral (Yale University Press, 2012)
Yale Series of Younger Poets Volume 106
The Yale Younger Poets Prize

"We can make of what would blind us a conduit for changed vision, suggest Corral. In these poems, a cage implies all the rest that lies outside it; any frame frames a window through which to see other possibilities unfolding. . . . Like Robert Hayden, Corral resists reductivism. Gay, Chicano, 'Illegal-American,' that's all just language, and part of Corral's point is that language, like sex, is fluid and dangerous and thrilling, now a cage, now a window out. In Corral's refusal to think in reductive terms lies his great authority. His refusal to entirely trust authority wins my trust as a reader." Carl Phillips, from the Foreword 
Self-Portrait with Tumbling and Lasso
My soul is whirling
above my head like a lasso.
My right hand
a pistol. My left
automatic. I'm knocking

on every door.
I'm coming on strong,
like a missionary.
I'm kicking back
my legs, like a mule. I'm kicking up
my legs, like
a showgirl.
         [excerpt - Page 21]
Eduardo C. Corral's poems have appeared in New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry, as well as other journals and anthologies. He received a Discovery/The Nation award and was selected for residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He is a recipient of a 2011 Whiting Writers' Award.

The Yale Younger Poets Prize is the oldest annual literary award in the United States. The competition is open to any American under forty years of age who has not previously published a volume of poetry.


Saturday, February 11, 2012

Review: We the Animals by Justin Torres


We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more. "We Wanted More"
With his short, 128 page debut coming-of-age novel We the Animals, Justin Torres packs a powerful punch.  This is one of those little books that I had in my queue of electronics books to read last year, and didn't get to until December. Once finished, I was sorry I didn't get to it earlier.

Where do I begin? Do I summarize the story first? No. I'll begin by giving you my impressions of the book itself. There's such velocity and power in the narration that it's tough to put this short book down for even one minute. The characters in this story are so rich and vibrant that they jump off the pages and the reader can't help but want to go on to know how the story ends. Torres' sparse writing style, like negative space in a painting used to emphasize shade and color, is highly effective, as what is not said is just as powerful as what is written.

The story is about three little boys, three brothers who are basically raising themselves as their mother works the evening shift and sleeps during the day, while their Paps is in and out of their lives. Their father is Puerto Rican and their mother is white, and the relationship between these parents is volatile, unstable, sometimes loving, confusing and ultimately traumatizing. Their parents are originally from Brooklyn but they live in upstate New York where families like theirs are not the norm.
"This is your heritage," he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of tenement buildings in Spanish Harlem, and project in Red Hook, and dance halls, and city parks, and about his own Paps, how he beat him, how he taught him to dance, as if we could hear Spanish in his movements, as if Puerto Rico was a man in a bathrobe, grabbing another beer from the fridge and raising it to drink, his head back, still dancing, still stepping and snapping perfectly in time. "Heritage"
The brothers grow up almost as a unit, with wants and needs that they scrimp and scrape to find on their own. There's a self-absorbing love within the family unit that keeps them in a fierce sort of protective vacuum for years. They grow up learning how to avoid their parents' battles, their father's belt, how to tiptoe while their mother sleeps during the day, making up their own games and getting into mischief as a unit. Torres effectively conveys joy, as well as the dysfunction in the boys' lives through their games, whether they are flying trash kites, smashing tomatoes or pretending to be "the magic of God."

As the story quickly moves along and the brothers grow in the midst of a chaotic household, physically and psychologically abused by self-absorbed parents, they begin to see beneath the surface of the fights and into the real dysfunction that permeates their family. The brothers' relationship begins to splinter ["When we were brothers..."], and although the two older brothers remain close, our young narrator feels more and more like an outsider, separate, alienated. As the story races to its climactic ending to uncover the reasons behind the boy's alienation, the story gains speed and by its conclusion the reader is left breathless and more than a little heartbroken.

The story is sectioned off into vignettes or short stories narrated in the first person point of view by the youngest brother. The narration is powerful, the sections are short and to the point with a sparse prose that makes We the Animals a quick, if powerful read. Is the book perfect? Of course not. There is a section at the end of the book where the point of view shifts to the third person, distancing the reader from the most poignant and heartbreaking moment in the story. Whether the author's purpose was to place that distance there or not, the abrupt change in perspective broke the spell I was under and interrupted the immediacy and urgency of that first point of view perspective that is so effectively used up to that particular point.

We the Animals by Justin Torres is a unique coming-of-age story that will leave you breathless with its content and speed. This is a heartbreakingly memorable story and one I highly recommend.

Category: Literary Fiction/LGBT
Publisher/Released: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/August 30, 2011 - Kindle Ed.
Grade: B+

Visit Justin Torres here.