The Darker

by Angelo Jaramillo

This young Latino writer's first collection of fictional short stories embody original tales revolving around the experience of what it was like to grow up in a place called The City Different. It focuses on the darker side of drive-by shootings, police brutality, anarchism, sexual deviance, drug abuse, political protest, moral disintegration and a host of other retellings of the life of a generation Xer growing up too fast in a hostile world where the only salvation is self-forgiveness. With Kafkaesque emotion, Baudelairean delicacy, and Garcia Marquez dexterity, the narrative springs from a gifted writer with an unapologetic taste for the controversial. Highly experimental in language, thought and rhetoric, Jaramillo strives to corner a reader's heart and sabotage the accepted notions of perceived reality while leaving the reader wanting more. Angelo Jaramillo was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and graduated from New Mexico Highlands University. He says, with a laugh, "I've never driven a brand new car and I accept donations, supplications, ransoms, and handouts." He is now working on a political study of the first female mayor of Santa Fe.

268 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006