Gordo Spiral-Bound | August 17, 2021
Jaime Cortez
★★★★☆+ from 1,001 to 10,000 ratings
Gordo
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.
Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
A "Best Book of August" by Bustle, Orion Magazine, and AltaA Best Book of the Year at NPR and BookPage
An ALA Notable Book
“[Gordo] gives the reader an unobstructed view into the lives of those who are often relegated to statistics and political talking points: people who come to the States for a better life for themselves and their offspring …The strength of Cortez’s work is that he lays out these stories without defining his characters by their worst actions, showing us people who are closer to reflections of ourselves than we think, even if they do not look like us, or come from the places we call home. And this is the book’s superpower: the cultivation of empathy.” —New York Times Book Review
“Funny and incredibly charming, despite highlighting the acute poverty of the camp’s Latino migrant residents…Cortez, a Bay Area author, masterfully navigates adverse conditions of migrant life while prioritizing in these stories the way people adapt to their circumstance — managing to find joy and amusement, love and triumph, that which makes us delightfully human — amid its challenge.” —San Francisco Chronicle
"So fresh, so smart and funny... the collection offers a ground’s-eye view of California in which joy and sorrow, aspiration and survival, family and individuality are irrevocably and unforgettably intertwined." —Alta
“A lovely book that masterfully evokes 1970s California, but manages, nonetheless, to feel truly universal…. The town that inspired John Steinbeck has a new literary star.” —NPR
“Intimate and irreverent… This hilarious short story collection gives incisive glimpses of blue-collar Mexican American life.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Gordo] announces a vibrant new voice on the literary scene, at once wise and authentic and supremely gifted. For readers of Junot Díaz and Ocean Vuong.” —Booklist, starred review
"Like Diane Arbus or Weegee, Cortez depicts warts-and-all moments of vulnerability precisely, sometimes even harshly, and without sentiment... Cortez artfully frames these characters’ daily struggles and captures them in the freeze-frame flash of a master at work." —BookPage , starred review
"Exuberant... A bright, clear voice that avoids stereotypes and navigates issues of identity with ease... Readers will be delighted." —Publishers Weekly
"These stories are elemental and unfussy, their emotional hearts affecting and memorable. [They] serve as unvarnished, even fond, testaments to a tough, queer life." —Kirkus (starred review)
“Cortez’s dialogue, timing, and humor is quick, dark and hilarious and the voice of Gordo, singular and soaring, full of naivete and grit that wrangles humor and human complexity with serious high-stake themes… Gordo, like Winesburg, Ohio, is capable of changing not only what it means to be American today, but what American literature can be… Hands down, top debut of 2021.” —Kerri Arsenault, Literary Hub
'"What a voice, what a charming, idiosyncratic voice! Cortez tells the untold stories of California. Set what you know aside, lay your expectations on the couch next to you, put your feet up, pick up this book, and journey into a land as real and complex as the state itself." —Rabih Alameddine
“What if David Sedaris and Richard Rodriguez were the same person? What if it was possible to tell stories about farmworkers and Latinx rural people with hilarity, queerness, tenderness, and poetic precision? What if Jaime Cortez existed and had a book coming out and you were lucky enough to read it in a few months’ time?” —Rebecca Solnit
“Some people have to walk around with so many sad stories. They have to get up, brush their teeth, wash their face, go to work like everybody else, but they’re not like everyone else. Jaime Cortez is a wise guy with a wide heart, who sees what ‘no one else wants to see.’ His funny/tragic tales, luminescent with love, are lanterns for our dark times.” —Sandra Cisneros
JAIME CORTEZ is a graphic novelist, visual artist, writer, teacher, and occasional performer. Cortez has historically used art and humor to explore sexuality, social justice, HIV/AIDS, and Chicano identity.