Dear Dagoberto Gilb,
You don’t know me but… I love you.
It’s on pages 20-21 in a story called Mayela One Day in 1989. The main character is in El Paso and he comes across an older gentleman and Mayela “…as dramatic and endowed as a fantasy.”
Here’s the rest of that description:
And folks, that’s not part of the three paragraphs I’m talking about. They follow after that description. The paragraphs give more background on Mayela and how intoxicated the protagonist is by her. It’s good solid prose I hadn’t read in such a long time.
But it’s not for everyone. If you like Latino/a (read: Chicano) literature (ex: Anya, Cisneros, Castillo, etc) you’ll get it. Those that aren’t use to the style may find it frustrating since Gilb’s pen is filled with soulful insight.
My friend Tony and Picasso’s Dragon discussed Gilb’s latest, The Flowers, for two weeks straight on air. And if Woodcuts is any indication of what he did in The Flowers, I understand why it took them so long.