Live from Fresno y Los

by Stephen D. Gutierrez

Fiction. Latin American Studies. "If you read one book of stories this year, make it this one. LIVE FROM FRESNO Y LOS kicks out the jams, and takes no prisoners. Enjoy, and tell a friend"--Virgil Suarez. "Stunning. Really, a lovely and loving collection of stories, nicely balanced between the vernacular and the literarily eloquent"--Lamar Herrin. "There is an ineradicable sweetness to these stories, accompanied by the crisp and happy bemusement of a genuine voice--the sound of one person speaking directly to another, and not from the head, but from that most mysterious of mouths, the human heart"--Jim Krusoe.

Genres: Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jeff]

As someone who loves the psychological complexity of retrospective voice, the way Stephen Gutierrez manages time and place are a revelation. Although these stories are mostly set in the City of Commerce in the early 70’s, the time is always now, and the place is always the landscape of memory. These are wiser narrators looking back with the knowledge of what’s happened, where they’ve been, and what their struggles are as they move forward. Whether the narrator is a young man struggling with his father’s dementia, an aging chola watching her friend slowly succumb to addiction, or an intelligent East L.A. boy struggling to understand the isolation he feels while attending an Ivy League school, we are shown how these profound changes have altered their lives, and Gutierrez tells their stories with kindness, wisdom, and fearlessness. Fantastic book.

[Roland]

A well deserved American Book Award winner, Gutierrez's semi-autobiographical collection of short stories renders tales of the Chicano experience a generation or two ago in southern and central California: LA (or more specifically, the City of Commerce) and Fresno. The commerce stories include "Harold, All-American," in which the narrator, an excellent student with ivy-league opportunities observes his friend and local hero Harold, a gridiron great , who leaves but ultimately returns to the neighborhood that he’s always considered home. It’s a familiar theme in several stories. Likewise, the narratives often follow characters seeking to maintain ethnic identities in expanding communities. Young people whose middle-class backgrounds distinguish them from the cholos of the barrios, and that distinction at times provides a contradictory sense of self, despite their parent s’ pride and wishes for offering something different.

Gutierrez’s prose is precise, illuminating and engaging; the dialogue true and honest. Also, the stories’ characters are developed with noticeable care, so that each story feels not only a work of fiction, but part of a broader documentary, doubly benefitting the reader, and making Live from Fresno y Los a definitive story collection in Chicano literature.

[Sally]

Stephen Gutierrez is a professor of English and the director of creative writing at nearby Cal State East Bay. I learned recently that Live from Fresno y Los was awarded the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. I enjoy keeping up with the writing of Bay Area authors, so I'll start hunting for a copy of this collection of stories. It was nominated for the Before Columbus Foundation award by Rudolfo Anaya, the author of this year's Big Read selection, Bless Me Ultima. Anaya praised the book's "refreshing, cinematic prose style," "eye for detail" and "narrative voice." He continued, "This is one of the most compelling collections of short stories I've read in a long time. Gutierrez raises important questions in his fiction. Writers like Gutierrez make the old veteranos proud."

Sounds great!

[Jake Fuchs]

Remarkable work by a writer with a great gift for creating complex characters who are as real as real can be. What impresses me most about this work of fiction is how many shades of feeling are combined in Gutierrez' prose.