Points of Departure: is an anthology of translated shorts by writers from Mexico, edited by Mónica Lavin. All of the stories are lovely, epic tales. I am drawn to Eduardo Antonio Parra's, "Real Life." It's gritty. It's honest. It's real. It's been a while since the, mostly, contemporary has made me this excited.
Books 2, 3, 4, 5 have been in my chattings, although each for singular reasons. They seem to intersect. I feel most comfortable with texts that have expansive ideas in the smallest bit of space. It's as if the story means that much more because all of the details are so poignant, so necessary. Anyhow, #2: The Pink Institution, Selah Saterstrom--Saterstrom became the mother of hybrid texts with this book. Read it and you'll see what I mean. #3: Black Box, Erin Belieu--an oldie but, what a goodie! Red dress worn to a funeral, and an x who is liken to 'pimp' and 'pusher.' It just doesn't get any better. #4: Brown: a novel, James Polster--I've assigned chapters of this to my students. It's a great novel that uses satire to address issues of identity assigned to chosen careers. #5: Zazie dans le métro, Raymond Queneau--Another text where I've assigned chapters to my students. It deals with a girl in transition. My students really seemed to take to it. Most of them could identify with Zazie. "She's a lot like me," they said. O, I love when the lights come on!
