Gordo : stories /

Gordo is a chubby Mexican American boy coming of age in 1970s California, a voracious reader of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries who loves disco and The Six Million Dollar Man. Along with his Ma and Pa and sister Sylvie, he lives on a work farm then eventually in a small house when his Pa scores a decent factory job. In the connected stories in Cortez's exuberant debut collection, a child's make-believe communion incites fears of blasphemy and ends in symbolic disaster. In another tale, Gordo's father hopes to nudge him toward manhood by surprising him with boxing equipment and attire, but Gordo is more fashionista than pugilist, drawn to the white silken shorts and pretty boots. Two stories feature Raymundo, an effeminate boy bullied for his long, lustrous hair who displays resounding courage to be himself and eventually find his calling as a successful hairdresser. These are stories of innocence and experience and the inevitable, often premature, always unidirectional transition from one to the other. In a culture long governed by tradition and faith, these stories provide a nuanced, thought-provoking exploration of the tension between expectations and finding one's own identity, between home and heritage, between head and heart. This 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.

Artist and graphic novelist Cortez (Sexile) celebrates Chicano life in this exuberant collection. Stories such as "El Gordo" focus on the experiences of the title character, a child of migrant farm workers. Cortez then moves with ease from depictions of Gordo's family to the intersecting lives of the inhabitants of Watsonville, Calif., in the 1970s. In "The Jesus Donut," a heretical young girl becomes a hero after she shares a donut with other kids, offering bits of it as communion. In "Alex," Gordo's family helps out their injured butch lesbian neighbor, Alex, and the burgeoning friendship becomes a cover for Gordo's mother to help Alex's abused femme partner escape to safety. In "The Problem of Style," bullied sixth grader Raymundo gains confidence when he decides to grow his hair out and become "artistic." At their best, Cortez's stories highlight the community's functional and paradoxical stew of interpersonal relationships, brimming with threats as well as love. Cortez has a bright, clear voice that avoids stereotypes and navigates issues of identity with ease: "Raymundo tossed his hair, turned smartly on his heels, and crossed an unmarked border into a new country." Readers will be delighted. (Aug.)

The pudgy, queer kid at the heart of these stories must navigate the harsh but loving community of migrant farm workers in rural California in the mid-1970s. "I get picked on all the time for being fat, cuz I can't throw a ball, for speaking English all wrong," Gordo confesses in "Fandango," in which he confronts the rare phenomenon of an apparent gringo coming to work at the garlic fields. It's an indication of how baffling Gordo finds the adult world that he doesn't understand that someone with red hair can be a Mexican named Juan Diego. The redhead encourages young Gordo to down some tequila at a boisterous Saturday night fandango that Gordo would prefer to observe, sitting on an upturned bucket just outside the circle of men who are drinking and listening to a Vicente Fernández record. "It tasted awful, but now everybody likes me," Gordo says. "For once, all the guys like me!" That party ends in two brothers having a violent brawl, one of them rushed to the emergency room by some of the other men even though they're furious at the brothers for fighting so intensely. Gordo has grown up in "Raymundo the Fag," by now the most talented hairstylist in Watsonville, such a star that Olga, his colleague, urges him to move to San Francisco or even just Salinas, which is at least a bigger town than Watsonville. "Half the culeros in this town have harassed or beat me, when they weren't trying to get into my pants," Ray tells her. "But I'm still here and taking their money to make their wives and girlfriends look foxy. That's home, Olga. I'm not going nowhere." Raygay, as he was known by his bullies when young, is asked to make one of his middle school tormentors look good in death; one side of Shy Boy's head is punctured by a bullet and only Ray can make the wig look stunning. These stories are elemental and unfussy, their emotional hearts affecting and memorable. Stories that serve as unvarnished, even fond, testaments to a tough, queer life. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.