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VIRTUAL EVENT: Jaime Cortez, Gordo

Thursday, December 9, 2021 - 6:00pm

FREE VIRTUAL EVENT: Bookshop Santa Cruz is delighted to welcome Jaime Cortez to discuss his his collection of short stories Gordo, which is a favorite of our staff and critics, alike. "An enormously entertaining book—hilarious, affecting, vulnerable, and wrenching, all at once." —San Francisco Chronicle

“Jaime Cortez’s lively debut collection is set in the farm camps and communities of Watsonville and San Juan Bautista in the 1970s, and is explored largely through the singular, earnest, and endearing voice of Gordo, a young boy discovering his own identity amidst the pressure and antics of his peers and the love and expectations of his community. Cortez grew up in Watsonville and speaks lighthearted, unerring truth to the area in these often funny, always heartfelt interconnected short stories.” —Melinda, Head Book Buyer

Click here to register for this free virtual eventGordo may be purchased below.

Shedding profound natural light on the inner lives of migrant workers, Jaime Cortez’s debut collection ushers in a new era of American literature that gives voice to a marginalized generation of migrant workers in the West.

The first-ever collection of short stories by Jaime Cortez, Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler’s mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp’s blank walls, the words “CHICANO POWER” boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother’s boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother’s Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck.

These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters – who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.

Jaime Cortez is a writer and visual artist based in Watsonville and San Francisco, CA. His fiction, essays, and drawings have appeared in diverse publications that include "Kindergarde: Experimental Writing For Children" (edited 2013 by Dana Teen Lomax for Black Radish Press), "No Straight Lines," a 40-year compendium of LGBT comics (edited 2012 by Justin Hall for Fantagraphics Press), "Street Art San Francisco" (edited 2009 by Annice Jacoby for Abrams Press), and "Infinite Cities," an experimental atlas of San Francisco (edited 2010 by Rebecca Solnit for UC Berkeley Press). He wrote and illustrated the graphic novel "Sexile" for AIDS Project Los Angeles in 2003. Cortez often combines humor and tragedy to tell stories of resilient survivors on the margins of the economy, the law, and social acceptability. "Gordo" is Jaime’s debut collection of short stories, published by Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Press. His website is www.jaimecortez.org.

 

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Gordo By Jaime Cortez Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9780802158086
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press, Black Cat - August 17th, 2021