City Lights Books proudly presents Dagoberto Gilb's impressive new collection of 11 short stories entitled "New Testaments: Stories." It was released on October 1.
"New Testaments: Stories" documents the lives of ordinary Mexican Americans living along our Border, an important but overlooked part of American history. LGBT ally Dagoberto Gilb is a master storyteller with a writing style all his own.
By the time I finished reading the first story "Gray Cloud on San Jacinto Plaza," it was clear to me that "New Testaments: Stories" is a great literary work.
Dagoberto Gilb has an uncanny ability to steer the first-person narrative with great agility, keeping it fresh and suspenseful. Author Francisco Goldman calls it, "Pure mastery."
An unusual characteristic feature of Gilb's writing is his use of extremely long paragraphs that function as a sort of stream of consciousness. The format conveys candor, and at times, a child's perspective, as when the narrator racks his mind to give every detail of a childhood memory.
His long paragraphs contain vivid descriptions, jokes, asides and numerous unexpected observations peppered in, such as "Mari stared at her blank, or like a cat might, the eyes, so still, they seemed to be more listening than seeing."
Or when a character named Roberto moved to Mexico City, he "became Roby — not pronounced like a robber but a rower..." Or that a certain character's adult children "needed everything but him."
Fool stories
The author calls his own innovative narrative "first-person stupid" or "fool stories," but his creative narration has been widely praised as parable-like, candid, clear and exuding wisdom, whether popular or not.
In "Prima," we get a taste of yesteryear when men used to fight for women's honor. In the Spanish world, the code of chivalry remained so strong that even murder was excusable if the dead person had done something to deserve it.
Sometimes Gilb fast-forwards far into the future to give a hopeful ending to what otherwise would be a tragedy, as when three of the five family members suddenly die after being exposed to a passing gray cloud of gas during a family outing one Sunday afternoon. The story is real and raw, but the two surviving members are determined to make their lives worth living, and do. I'm not sure how, but Gilb achieves transcendence in just a few pages.
Author ire'ne lara silva puts it this way:
"A Buddhist nun...said something that stuck with me: that writers had to pour their entire selves onto the page. But the crucial work — what made it art, what made it necessary to the spirit — was the writer then burning themselves out, leaving only their essence, leaving only their energy. These stories in 'New Testaments' are the closest I've seen anybody come to doing that in a very, very, very long time. I often had to stop to re-read a sentence and breathe, because the language was so beautiful I had to hold it in my mouth."
An unlikely rise
Dagoberto Gilb attended several community colleges while working as a paper cutter and stockboy, then transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara where he majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies and received a master's degree in Religious Studies.
He is also a journeyman carpenter and skilled stonecutter. In 1977, while working a construction job at the University of El Paso, Dagoberto Gilb found out that short story writer Raymond Carver was teaching across the street. He decided to switch to writing short stories as well. At the time, he was completing his first novel; it has never been published.
For years Gilb wrote commentaries for NPR's "Fresh Air" and served as Writer-in-Residence and Executive Director of Centro Victoria: Center for Mexican American Literature and Culture at the University of Houston, Victoria. His writing has appeared in the "New Yorker Magazine" among others and he is the founder of "Huizache," a groundbreaking literary magazine of Latinx writing.
Gilb is the recipient of the James D. Phelan Award, Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, several PEN Awards including the Hemingway Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well being a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, among other awards. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he now lives in both Austin and Mexico City.
Excerpt:
"One night, some more months later, even a year, at maybe 3 am, those hours for sleep, I'd been having a long dream I couldn't shake. I was with some people I didn't recognize, but who I kept thinking I did. And I was supposed to drive. I didn't drive when I wasn't dreaming, even if I pretended to in my dad's truck. I was scared of getting in trouble and maybe dying in a bad wreck or killing someone else. So I forced myself awake. I must have made a noise. My mom had come. While I was dreaming she was there. She wanted to know if I was okay. She was carrying a glass of water. I was thirsty and it really tasted especially good. Of course I was okay, I assured her. It was a dumb dream. I didn't like the dream. It had nothing to do with that gray cloud, which to her...and I remember saying to her, or only to myself, Mom, it wasn't the gray cloud, but she wouldn't have believed me, but she wouldn't have said she didn't believe me. I was happy she was there, happy for the water, but as good as all that was...the gray cloud happened, and it lived with us. I woke up happy I had my mom. I had some friends who didn't, or some who didn't really.
'New Testaments: Stories' by Dagoberto Gilb, City Lights Books, $16.95
www.citylights.com
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