Woodcuts of Women: Stories - Softcover

Gilb, Dagoberto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802138748 ISBN 13: 9780802138743

Publisher: Grove Press, 2002

Synopsis

Dagoberto Gilb is an acknowledged master of the short story, the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, and a PEN/Faulkner finalist for his debut collection, The Magic of Blood, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his fiction writing. His critically acclaimed collection Woodcuts of Women is now available in paperback and features ten moving and heartbreaking stories of lust, love, and longing among men and women struggling to find their way in the world. Written in Gilb's spare, humid language, each of these haunting stories is crafted with a poetic, aching beauty. At turns powerful and resonant, hopeful and humorous, Woodcuts of Women is a tour de force by one of America's foremost Latino writers. "The sheer intensity and bravado of [Gilb's] vision make this collection succeed." -- Jean Thompson, The New York Times Book Review "Lonely, tough stories -- stories that force us to confront what's difficult in us, and in the people we love." -- Adrienne Miller, Esquire "Gilb's stories read like verbal woodcuts deliberately unrefined and carefully unadorned, clear in their intent but without undue elaboration...." -- Sean Glennon, The Hartford Courant "...Gilb writes of the gritty passions of man for women, grand delusions and tender mercies...." -- Oscar C. Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Mexican-American men and women in pursuit of sex and spiritual sustenance inhabit the 10 stories featured in Gilb's second collection, set mostly in El Paso, Tex. Lucky in love but unwilling to settle down, the male protagonists are possessed of a collective roving eye and seek out the prototypical mysterious female strangerDin department stores, on the street, in airport lounges. Whether consumed by their surroundingsDlike R. Fernandez, in "Hueco," who lives in an entirely blue apartmentDor by passion, they are often left drained and despondent by their adventures. In "Shout," a brief but intense account of domestic disquietude, a beer-guzzling husband, home after a long day's work, vents his rage. "The Pillows" tells of itinerant George, who crashes at a high school buddy's apartment only to be overwhelmed by the pathos evident in his friend's grimy linens. Another drifter, Willie, ends up house-sitting for a gringa, Irene, in "About Tere Who Was in Palomas." Obsessed with thoughts of his ex-girlfriend, he ignores Irene's advances. In the best stories, the conflicts sparked are left hauntingly unresolved; in others, the lack of resolution seems rote and empty. As the book's title suggests, outlines or crude impressions of women are often all the men are capable of seeing in these elliptical tales. Gilb's fluent, colloquial prose, with its frequent detours into Spanglish, keeps his fictions fresh, as does his honest reckoning with life in the grittier suburbs of the Southwest. Though he is still working out some kinks, GilbDauthor of the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning story collection The Magic of Blood, a novel and a number of widely anthologized essaysDis a writer to watch. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

In this collection of short stories, Gilb is many men in many ordinary situations. In "Maria de Covina," he's a cocky teenager holding town service jobs. In "Hueco," he's a laborer looking for a place to live. What ties these 10 short stories together is an obsession with women: lovers past and present, a landlady, a drag queen. It's the brooding, often erotic obsession with women that cuts through the mundane lives of Gilb's ordinary heroes and bring the stories to life. Gilb's canvas is the working-class life of Mexican Americans in el barrio. But his brush and paint are contained in an awesome facility with language and dialogue that carries the reader along from one page to the next. He morphs superbly into the skin of his narrators, as varied as they may be. Gilb's piquant prose is his carrying card, and his skills are well represented in this collection. The author is an important American voice and a great literary talent. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0802138748
• ISBN 13: 9780802138743
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192