Lesser Evils: Ten Quartets

by Gary Soto

This collection of autobiographical essays deal with such topics as adolescent explorations of the opposite sex and a realization that the goals of our youth are often unattainable

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Gary Soto is the author of eleven poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry International, and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in the interview series Poets in Person. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence. In 1997, because of his advocacy for reading, he was featured as NBC’s Person-of-the-Week. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He divides his time between Berkeley, California and his hometown of Fresno.

Reviews

[Shayla Anderson]

Within this set of poems contain four different small parts of Gary Soto’s life. The last section of the book is about his life is about how he became a writer. The first part of the book is the teenage years of Gary Soto that talk about the thoughts of any teenage boy, love, sex, and wanting to be successful. He talks about things that are real and as a reader I like how the author has nothing to hide from his readers. It makes myself as a reader feel more connected to the author even though I have never had any communication with him. I really enjoyed this book because it was about the part of Gary Soto’s life that I am, and will soon in the future experience. I had a better understanding of these poetry books out of all of Soto’s because it was more directed towards my age group.