{"id":775,"date":"2012-07-08T20:33:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T01:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=775"},"modified":"2012-07-01T20:43:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T01:43:27","slug":"from-macho-to-mariposa-new-gay-latino-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/from-macho-to-mariposa-new-gay-latino-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-778\" style=\"border: 0pt none; float: left; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px;\" title=\"From Macho\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/From-Macho.jpeg\" alt=\"Cover of From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction\" width=\"140\" height=\"224\" \/><a title=\"Find this book in a library near you!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/711864646\">From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction. Ed. by Charles RiceGonzales and Charles Vasquez.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Twenty-nine mostly serious but all well-written stories make up this collection, prefaced with introductions by the two editors. The authors are Latinos from all over the Western Hemisphere, including the U.S., and while some are well established writers, others are newcomers to the art.<\/p>\n<p>Some stories might be difficult to follow without some knowledge of the Spanish language. Luckily living much of my life with a Cuban partner and his mother helped me out a lot.<\/p>\n<p>These stories don\u2019t mince words about the sad\u00a0and tragic aspects of gay life among Latinos. In the\u00a0first story a sissy Mexican boy murders his abusive father by causing a car jack to give way, thereby crushing\u00a0him under the car. The penultimate story describes the\u00a0ordeal of two gay Guatemalans, one abandoned by his\u00a0single mother, the other beat up regularly by his father,\u00a0as they try to cross into the U.S. They don\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n<p>Stories vary in length from fewer than two pages to 19. That longest story, along with two other longer ones, are excerpts from novels. The longest one is\u00a0also the most hopeful, about a 40-year Irish Anglo gay\u00a0man returning to the South Bronx after losing his Puerto\u00a0Rican lover of 20 years. In one day he meets (and falls\u00a0for) the sexy 17-year-old son of his super and pours out\u00a0his heart to the sympathetic grandmotherly Puerto Rican across the hall.<\/p>\n<p>While most of the stories are straightforward\u00a0narratives, two use a stream-of-conscious style. There\u00a0is little actual sex, and of that, much is unhappy. In\u00a0many of the stories there is just too much tragedy for\u00a0sex to even come up.<\/p>\n<p>Having reviewed the ARC, I trust the few minor\u00a0typos will get fixed before actual publication.These are important Latino authors sharing serious literary stories. All the authors and the editors have\u00a0short bios at the end of the volume. Any library or reader interested in the latest of Latino gay writing will want this collection.<\/p>\n<p>Reviewer: <strong>James Doig Anderson<\/strong><br \/>\nProfessor Emeritus of Library and Information Science<br \/>\nRutgers University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction. Ed. by Charles RiceGonzales and Charles Vasquez. Twenty-nine mostly serious but all well-written stories make up this collection, prefaced with introductions by the two editors. The authors are Latinos from all over the Western Hemisphere, including the U.S., and while some are well established writers, others are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}