Dagoberto Gilb - Gritos: Essays

Praise for Gritos:

Gritos is an intimate look at Gilbs growth as a writer grappling with a desire to stay true to his working-class roots, and at the same time expose the powerful talent he has for penetrating, honest and emotional writing about cultural misconceptions, family relationships, manual labor and American literature.

Paul S. Flores, San Francisco Chronicle

A challenging, thought-provoking series of pieces rooted in an outsiders perspective.

Sharyn Wizda Vane, Austin American-Statesman

A splendid and touching and intelligent work that demonstrates the difficulties of becoming an artist when coming from modest means... Gritos is a book serious readers need to read. Gilbs voice is one too seldom heard.

Eric Miles Williamson, Houston Chronicle

Gilbs first book of essays reads like told stories, as choppy, authentic, and captivating as his much-loved fiction and National Public Radio commentaries.... His essays tackle the fantastic, the ridiculous, and the racially charged with a conversational style that, smiling, holds all accountable for these absurdities and wrongs.

Mary Wiltenburg, The Christian Science Monitor

[Gilb] has an uncanny, near magical ability to paint almost three-dimensional word pictures.... He is adept at stripping away facades to reveal the essence of the human condition.

Geoff Campbell, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Gilb pounds out his brand of slangy, punchy prose, combining working-class English and untranslated Spanish with unerring rhythm.... Gilb achieves a driving declarative rhythm in Gritos. This is one expressive writer. Like Jimmy Santiago Baca and Rudolfo Anaya, Gilb conveys an inside track on contemporary Latino life in the Southwest, but with Gritos, his strongest work yet, he muscles his way to the forefront. This is a book to buy and to keep.

Wolf Schneider, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Gilb is one of those rare creatures identified by Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci as an organic intellectual, a thinker who speaks from, and for, the working class but with a keen understanding of how history shapes social and cultural hierarchies.... [Gritos] offers sharp and sometimes scathing cultural criticism but with a voice as unique and gritty as some of his fictional characters.

Michael Solo, San Antonio Express-News

As a writer [Gilb] is the real thing.... In all of [the essays] we hear his strong voice.

Edward H. Garcia, The Dallas Morning News

Gilb shines in these essays with his fearlessness and wit, as well. Most impressive are his clarity and his measured indignation at the inability of white America to grasp Chicano beliefs or culture.... Gilb is a legitimate and undeniable talent.

David Garza, The Austin Chronicle

A collection of riveting essays covering everything from being a father to the mythology surrounding Mexican women to cock-fighting to Latino literature to Cormac McCarthy... Full of shouts of articulate passion.

alibi

A rough-hewn gem of brutal honesty... The honesty and often-spectacular prose of these essays make them essential to anyone who wishes to challenge the too-often exclusive and esoteric status of American literature. These essays are truly gritos into the hot sun: primal, heart-wrenching as well ecstatic and often explosive.

Sergio Troncoso, El Paso Times

Gilb captures the dusty southwestern landscapes of the working-class Latino. The authors rise fromand ties tothat uncompromising world gives these essays added depth.

Steve Kurutz, Details

Full of sentiments that are not only not heard enough, but often arent heard at all. Subjects as novel as cockfighting, Cormac McCarthy, and lawn-care blues are tackled.

Chad Hammett, Southwestern American Literature

Theyre in your face, these essays.... Theyve got so much attitude and arrogance, so much candor, bias and raw emotion, and so much authentic material that youre snagged.... Theyre bold and convincing, full of life, and they revel in the wonder of writing.

Christine Wald-Hopkins, Tucson Weekly

Even those not inclined toward essays will find Dagoberto Gilbs Gritos irresistible.... Gilb writes as though he were pouring out his heart at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee and a smoke. The prose... is tenaciously honest, and the pugnacious intelligence behind the swagger makes this collection resonate.

Mike Shea, Texas Monthly

[Gilbs] zest for life, passion for illuminating Mexican American culture, and seductive storytelling skills infuse his astute observations, reminiscences, and critiques with compelling energy and momentum.

Donna Seaman, Booklist

Distinguished by honesty... bittersweet optimism, and plain good writing, these pages offer... much to admire.... [Gilb] has a steady hand and a workmanlike attitude.

Kirkus Reviews

Always interesting... some pieces resound with an intensity of style that keeps the pages turning.... Highly recommended.

Harold Augenbrawn, Library Journal

GRITOS

Also by Dagoberto Gilb:

Woodcuts of Women

The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acua

The Magic of Blood

Essays by

Dagoberto Gilb

Illustrated by

Csar A. Martnez

Copyright 2003 by Dagoberto Gilb

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

These pieces have previously appeared, sometimes in slightly different form, in the following periodicals, to which grateful acknowledgment is made:

Harpers Magazine: Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes (published as Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: A Pochos Tour of Mexico)

The New Yorker and Las Mamis (Knopf, 2000): Mi Mommy (published as I Knew She Was Beautiful), Spanish Guy

The New York Times: Steinbeck (published as Sentimental for Steinbeck)

San Francisco Chronicle: Un Grito de Tejas

The Los Angeles Times: Documenting the Undocumented (published as Ebb and Flow Colors Our World)

San Antonio Express-News: The Donkey Show (published as Found Art: Boystown) Latino USA: Eulogy for Don Ricardo Snchez

The Threepenny Review: Northeast Direct Me Macho, You Jane (published as Machismo)

The Washington Post Magazine: Victoria (published as Nice Like a Kiss)

The Washington Post Book World This Writers Life (published as The Writing Life)

The Nation:The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy

ANQ: Note on Lit from the Americas

Balcones: Los Gallos

Texas Monthly: Vaya con Dios, Rosendo Juarez (published as Juarez and Peace)

The Carpenter