Gordo: Stories

by Jaime Cortez

This debut story collection “masterfully navigates adverse conditions of migrant life while . . . managing to find joy and amusement, love and triumph” (San Francisco Chronicle).Gordo brings readers inside a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. At the heart of these interrelated stories is a young, probably gay, boy named Gordo, who must find a way to contend with the notions of manhood imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants.We also meet Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist who runs away from home one day with her mother’s boyfriend, Manny. And then there are Los Tigres, the twins who show up every season and whose drunken brawl ends with one of them rushed to the emergency room in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck.These scenes from Steinbeck Country are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious Who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency when grown adults must fear for their lives and livelihoods?Gordo “announces a vibrant new voice on the literary scene, at once wise and authentic and supremely gifted” (Booklist, starred review).Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay FictionLonglisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, LGBT, Latinx, Queer, Audiobook, Historical Fiction

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 17, 2021

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this collection of snapshots into the life of a young, fat, queer son of Mexican migrants living in California in the 1970’s. Jamie Cortez does a great job of showing how childhood bullying and binary gender roles enforce toxic masculinity and homophobia. I didn’t love this book because the main character’s voice felt a bit passive and one-note to me. I understand Gordo is a child and a child who is marginalized based on his social identities, but the narrative voice lacked a certain precision, power, and growth that I felt amazed by when I read Caucasia by Danzy Senna, for example. Still, I’m all for queer representation outside of the cis, fit, white male paradigm so kudos to Cortez for putting this collection out there and I hope more people continue to resonate with it.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The dogs are melting. Lobo is lying on the porch with his pink tongue hanging out. Chiquita is hiding under the car with her ears down. Everybody is hiding from the sun except for me. I'm riding my bicycle, so I can feel some wind when I pedal. It's not working too good. Past the tomato fields, I can see this family walking along San Juan Highway. Right away I know they ain't doing so good...

I found myself thinking how much reading these stories reminded me of reading the stories of Sholom Aleichem. However farfetched that idea--one author writes about life in a Mexican-American agricultural family, and the other about life in an Eastern European shtetl--both authors center their stories on family and community, and both authors use a complicated humor to drive their stories forward. There's a clarity in this storytelling that's so refreshing, so vivid. Each story feels simple in the beginning, almost trivial, and then evolves into something very deeply felt. It's a remarkable collection.

I'm living a comfortable life in a South Bay suburb, where on the hottest days of summer a heavy garlic scent comes wafting up from the fields to the south. For a few days of summer, being outside is like walking through soup. Now I've read an intimately told story about the people working in those garlic fields. The alchemy of fiction has shaped them into something that can speak to someone like me. It's a different and necessary education than what I get from reading nonfiction accounts of farm workers in the U.S. (although while I'm at it let me recommend an excellent one--With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today by Daniel Rothenberg.)

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m always excited to be introduced to a Bay Area author. I’m not only jazzed with fulfillment having read these ‘debut’ connected-short stories:
….The Jesus Donut, El Gordo, Chorizo, Cookie, The Nasty Wars, Fandango, Alex, The Pardos, The Problem of Style, Raymundo the Flag, and Ofelia’s Last Ride….
THE TYPE OF STORIES WE NEED MORE OF….
…..But I’m excited to learn more about Jamie Cortez and his other work — his contributions as an inspiring role model as an LGBT activist, and HIV/AIDS prevention work.
The collection of these short stories, may be a ‘debut’, collection, but Jaime didn’t just suddenly popped out of the woodwork. He’s been a graphic artist, visual artist, teacher, and performer, as well as a writer.
Based out of Northern California (lucky us), his fiction, essays, drawings, have appeared in diverse publications including the. ‘Kindegarde: Experimental Writing for Children”.
From comics to Fantagraphics…. Street Art in San Francisco…he wrote and illustrated the graphic novel “Sexile”….for AIDS Project Los Angeles.

“Cortez often combines humor and tragedy to tell stories of resilient survivors on the margins of the economy, the law, and social acceptability”….
AMEN!!!!!

And…..Rebecca Solnit said it best when she wrote:
“What if David Sedaris and Richard Rodriguez were the same person? What if it was possible to tell stories about farmworkers and Latinx rural people with hilarity, queerness, tenderness, poetic precision? What if Jamie Cortez existed and had a book coming out and you were lucky enough to read it in a few months’ time?”
…..
Again….. I say, AMEN!

I can’t imagine anyone not being a little in ‘awe’ with these stories.
Readers will be introduced to a colorful cast in these very entertaining stories — Gordo, his older sister, Sylvie, cousins: Cesar, Olga and Tiny….
a few bullies….a few grownups—-Grandma, Ma, Pa, …etc. (drunk adults, abusive adults….a few kind moments too).
LOTS of HUMOR…(laugh out loud humor)—-all in the context of moral vicissitudes, sadness, and down right failures.
Hardship and humiliation - bad luck and hard knocks are floating right below the surface — (poverty, discrimination, and the grueling work for migrant workers (documented and undocumented), at Gyrich Farms Worker Camp: near Watsonville California in the 1970’s)…..
Its the children’s voices that completely steal our hearts.

“The Jesus Donut”:
“We never had no van full of donuts arrive here at the Gyrich Farms Worker Camp before”. …… chocolate donuts… some with rainbow sprinkles… some with coconut….and huge cookies…. (oatmeal, chocolate chip, and yellow have-a-nice-day smiley face cookie). It was a miracle!….
But….
The donuts were not free… “You gotta pay”….
THIS STORY WAS PRICELESS and hilarious. The title ‘fits’.

All the stories connect - flow perfectly together…
I felt the loneliness for Gordo when he was home alone, lying on his bunk, eating Fritos and reading…” Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day”…etc.
Gordo’s Pa wants to make a strong fit man out of Gordo. Pa brings home training equipment… boot-camp-workout-expectations.
When Gordo was jump roping …rather exhausting over a period of time - boring too…he started to sing his favorite song that he learned from his sister, Sylvie.
“I’m a little princess
Dressed in blue
Here are the things
I like to do:
Salute to the captain
Bow to the queen,
Turn my back
On the submarine.
I can do the tap dance,
I can do the splits—“…..
“DON’T”…..says Pa. NO SINGING…..
Again…..this story will have you totally hooked….we’re dying to know how it comes together….

We meet Lobo…(Gordo’s dog)…get an experience of working in the tomato fields, family, friendships, visitors, yummy foods of frying pan onions, dried masa for tortillas, eggs, chorizo,
or pancakes, carne asada, pozole, chicken soup….etc.

We will be introduced to the terms Chicana and beaner.
Being a beaner means you don’t have papers to be in the United States of America. “It means you’re a mojado, just another wetback.
“No sir. I’m not no wetback. I was born over in Hollister, at Linda Hawkins Hospital. We’ve lived here in San Juan Bautista since I was a baby”.
We meet Fat Cookie….a terrific artist.
Gordo says:
“Wow. This drawing is boss. I always thought Fat Cookie only knew how to be mean. But she’s not only mean, she’s an artist”.

Tons of heart…harrowing, powerful, and highly imaginative stories.

Thank you, Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and Jaime Cortez (I hope to meet him around and about in the Bay Area….maybe at a book reading?)

[Book Clubbed · Rating 5 out of 5]

***FIRST FIVE-STAR BOOK FOR 2021***

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for the ARC.

My man Jaime Cortez BODIED this collection of short stories like a luchador coming down off the top rope for a body slam. This collection has everything you could want from a short story collection: the ineffable balance between text and subtext, the surprising yet inevitable ending, and characters of flesh and bone and blood and marrow and the fine baby hairs curling at their temples, or so it seemed to me, so vivid and corporeal. The interconnectedness of these stories elevated the entire collection as well, allowing us to weave in and out of character arcs as they triumph or reach piques of mercy trying.

What truly impressed me (as if I haven't hyped this enough) is the way that the author captures the perspective of a child. So many modern books fail at this book, writing children seen from the adult view, or trying to rewrite their own childhood in curdled nostalgia or vapid naiveté. The dialogue between the children is sharp, accompanied by the inconsistent strands of logic that consume a child's mind before fleeing to make room for a new thought. Our titular character, Gordo, is a delight, large yet tender, gay yet feeling the urge to appease the masculine demands around him, a thoughtful boy who is still in awe of the sharp-tongued children. The rest of the ragtag band of children are fantastic, as is the worker's camp setting, a land and time unknown to me that still asserts itself as deeply familiar.

Listen to full reviews at https://bookclubbed.buzzsprout.com/.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"Raymundo tossed his hair, turned smartly on his heels, and crossed an unmarked border into a new country." -- the crisp closing line of 'The Problem of Style,' on page 179

Author Cortez's Gordo is a collection of eleven compact short stories, with the majority of them focusing on the titular character, a ten year-old son of migrant workers living in the farming region of central California in the mid- to late 1970's. The book doesn't go heavy into some sort of nostalgia overload - although my favorite moment is when Gordo observes "'CHiPs' is the best television show ever in all of 1977" because he is correct (Haha!) - but does potently capture its setting. However . . . I did not find those kid-centric stories terribly compelling, especially with the some of the non-stop insults (which are authentic for the time period and age group, but still strike a dissonant note) cruelly hurled by the juvenile characters. Gordo doesn't really hit its stride until the last quarter of the book - it's almost as if the author was steadily gaining confidence with each new chapter - and it's the final quartet of stories that were, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. 'The Pardos' examines and explains a black sheep-type of family's status / standing in the community, while 'Ofelia's Last Ride' depicts a wake and funeral of a beloved neighborhood resident through a child's eyes. But the two-part 'The Problem of Style' segueing into 'Raymundo the Fag' - detailing a bullied gay middle-schooler, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, blossoming into a successful, accepted and arguably even an essential figure in his hometown - provided a quietly reassuring message.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engaging read from cover to cover. There is not a weak story in the collection (11 total), and three of them are especially strong: "Fandango", "Alex", and "Raymundo the Fag".

Jaime Cortez has created a semi-fictional California community of working-class immigrants (some documented, some not; many Mexican, others of Salvadorean, Chicano, or Indio origin) that is vibrant, passionate, comical, violent, and 100% believable.

Quite by happenstance, I picked this up just after finishing Joyce's legendary "Dubliners". There are many striking similarities between the two books, including recurring characters, detailed descriptions of location and setting, the role of Catholicism in daily life, the importance of national pride within a threatened culture, the troublesome misuse of alcohol as a coping strategy, and the recognition of death as a crucial part of life.

I look forward to more from this talented writer.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

A 2021 NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR!

FINALIST FOR THE 34th LAMMY AWARD&mdash:BEST GAY FICTION! Winners announced 11 June 2022.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'm always down for a story collection! This one is set in a world I liked the minute I landed in it, the Mexican American vibrant loud exuberant over-the-top everybody knows where you are, where you came from, and what to expect from you so watch it, FIESTA. Living in Mercedes, Texas, in the Sixties, I was The White Kid in my elementary school, and the Mexican American family who lived and worked on my great-aunt's place in Progreso were, well, welcoming. A little redheaded boy at the table? Okay, here's a tortilla, eat hearty. This was very much NOT to my mother's taste and she snatched me outta there to Austin by decade's end. I missed it. And when I got this collection of stories, I thought, yeah this works, I'm ready for a trip that far past the white-water rapids of Memory!

I've used the time-honored (eight years and counting!) Bryce Method over at my blog: short impressions with individual ratings for the stories so as to organize my thoughts and feelings, while hopefully allowing you to reach your own conclusions. These are excellent stories, about people the Haves aren't acquainted with, in all their flawed reality and aspiring joy.

[Lupita Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in a migrant workers community this collection of short stories follows El Gordo, a young fat queer boy coming of age in the 1970s. I have loved a lot of short story collections this year but El Gordo touched at the inner queer Lupita navigating understanding her place in the world and her family. Though it's a short story collection it often, for me, read like a novel and that just might be because similar to Junot Diaz and his recurring character Junoir, El Gordo is a reappearing character throughout the collection which doesn't just focus on him but on meditations of queerness, religion, toxic masculinity, fatphobia, homophobia and coming of age within a Latinx community.

There was so much I loved about this collection but again I go back to the connection I felt with El Gordo. How in the first story he and his cousins/friends navigate the meaning/power of a Christian ceremony with a donut or later when he's part of an escape plan his Mother has concocted to free their next-door neighbor who is trapped in a queer abusive relationship.

El Gordo's appearance throughout each story collection felt like being a child and overhearing my elders tell stories. To me, it’s a testament to the power of Latinx story telling and easily one of my favorite books of the year. If I could add one book to the “American Literary cannon”, it would be this one.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cortez's Gordo is a collection of snapshots giving us Gordo and a view into what being fat, gay, son of Mexican migrants, living in California in the 70's means.

Excellent narration. Each story is solid on its own. If viewed as part of the whole we get to see parts including the underbelly of what being this kind of American means. The poverty, the homesickness, the cultivation of the value of money and other American values, such as the veneration of the donut, family, being yourself, being American or not.

An ARC gently given by author/publisher via Netgalley.

[Julietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Gordo Stories" by Jaime Cortez have been called a mixture of David Sedaris and Richard Rodríguez.. I'd call them more of a wonderful combination of Sedaris' humor and Francisco Jimenez' campesino life stories!

Written in the beloved Spanglish of los fieles (the fields), Gordo and his friends confront bullying, sex roles, machismo in a simple flowing writing style which just begs to be read aloud! Once I started, I couldn't stop!

It took me back to a place in time and space where I have never lived as all great literature does. Everything felt so familiarly strange, so achingly real. I was right there with the families...one with their migration dilemmas.

You've done something wonderful here, Jaime! ¡Gracias!

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection of short stories (that feels more like a novel in vignettes) about growing up in 1970s California as the queer child of migrant farmers - and it was really good. My favorite stories were Jesus Donut, Alex, and Raymundo the F** , but you should read the whole book

File under: emotional, quick reads, books that feature kids

Learned about: migrant labor, Jolly Giant, farm work, Mexican identity, queerness, childhood, documentation status

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cortez writes about the dramas of everyday life with the pitch-perfect tone and tempo of a master storyteller. I loved getting a peak into a world about which I know embarrassingly little and found myself instantly enamored of his stories' guileless narrators. I'm pretty sure Gordo is going to be considered a timeless classic, so you should definitely read it as soon as you're able!

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jaime Cortez's Gordo is one of those titles that keeps providing more rewards as readers work their way through it. The individual stories are varied, engaging, distressing, hopeful. But these stories add up to something larger. In a sense, these stories are a novel—one that takes readers through many shifts of perspective and that requires readers' assistance in pulling it into a whole. And I mean this in a good way.

Imagine a photo of a place. Cut that photo into pieces, discarding a few, but keeping most. Then use those pieces to create a mobile. Watch the pieces as they move in relation to one another, as different bits come into proximity. Ask yourself questions about the handful of pieces that are missing. That's what reading Gordo is like. And I mean that in a very good way.

The characters in Gordo are residents of the agricultural lands that make up California's Central Coast: agricultural workers and their children; documented and undocumented; kind and unkind; gay, straight, and questioning. Each story offers exactly the sort of detail and precision that readers need. Cortez creates complex characters and situations without every writing with unnecessary complexity. And, as I said above, the rewards keep coming as the stories inform one another. The further I got in Gordo, the harder it was to put the book down and the more I had to fight to keep myself from racing through stories to see what was still to come.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own.

[Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cortez excels at capturing the voice of a queer kid who doesn't fit in but is still too young to fully understand why or how he's different. There's a deeply felt and unexpected fondness(nostalgia?) with which Gordo describes his tough but loving childhood.

I'm torn on what I think of Cortez's choice to shift from Gordo's first-person perspective to a third-person narration for several of the later chapters. On the one hand, individually these were really lovely and moving stories. On the other hand, for the book as whole something feels off to me that, as Gordo comes of age and settles into his own identity, the point of view leaves his perspective and takes a more distant look at his experiences. This shift made me feel like I missed out on getting to see how Gordo's view of the world grew and changed with him.

All that said, this is a tender and bittersweet collection of closely-connected stories.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this collection of intertwining short stories about rural Latinx people in California. These types of stories are rare, and I enjoyed all of them. They're childish with adult themes and not obnoxiously cringe.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to miss Gordo. Pretty sure this will be a re-read.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
The writing immerses you in this boy’s world from page one. He’s a pretty cool insightful kid too; full of heart & curiosity.
As a Tejana I most definitely connected with his world, but I think many will relate to his musings & life’s discoveries as this boy meets world.
If you’re looking for authentic insight to the world of Mexican-Americans, Mexican immigrants & undocumented this will be a great window.
The stories are written in short story format, but they very much weave together.
I laughed. I teared up. My heart ached. My heart soared.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d give the first half about 2.5 stars, and the second half about 4.5. ESPECIALLY the chapter about Alex! That was riveting and un-put-down-able!!! I could have read a whole novel about that situation!!

[Aaron Aceves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend. I don't think I'll ever rate a short story collection five stars because I think it's near-impossible for me to like every (or almost every) story in one, but this one came close. The first couple of stories were eh, the middle ones were Great, and the last few were good.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection of short stories about a Mexican-American young boy and his immigrant family making a go of it in Watsonville, California. Of course, the young boy has a nickname and that nickname is Gordo which he doesn't necessary love but embraces because what choice does he really have. If you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, you will appreciate the language, the references, and the generally different lifestyle to which we have now become accustomed. These are the stories of the working class, the queer community, and the immigrant people upon whom this country relies so heavily. It bears repeating that I loved this book. It felt like home.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cortez offers an exceptional collection of short stories that explore growing up in Watsonville, California during the 80s. Gordo is a boy whose coming of age will ultimately take him through a homophobic landscape that shapes him as much as his own choices. But if you read “The Problem of Style”, followed by “Raymundo the Fag," you begin to see that the path for Gordo may end with some triumphs.
The collection of characters that Cortez presents here are rich, heartbreaking, laugh out loud funny, evil, heroic, and all the wonderful things that make a character fertile in humanity.
Definitely stock this one on your library shelf.

[Christopher Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in and around a predominantly Mexican migrant workers camp in 1970s Watsonville, California, Cortez’s stories are filled with so much love for the characters who inhabit them. Cortez is unflinching in his portrayals of violence and threat, and still—no matter how tragic their backstories or dire their current circumstances, he holds his cast in perfect balance, allowing levity and humor to always be in focus.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, funny, moving. These were an absolute treasure to read. Cortez really builds up the backdrop for all the stories, characters feel like real people, even if you only knew them for a few pages. Definite recommend.

[Dusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely, sometimes sassy collection of stories.

[Hatseflats · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short story collection that featured a chubby Chicano boy nicknamed Gordo (Spanish for 'fat') as he lives his life on a large fruit and vegetable farm in Southern California in the 1970s. Later in the collection we are also introduced to a gay teenager as he endures the torture of being gay in the homophobic atmosphere of a small rural town. We also get to see him after he grows into an adult. These were really charming stories. I enjoyed them all. Several of them were funny and sweet and a few were poignant. Definitely a recommend!

[Lyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny, sad, touching series of connected stories about a fat, gay, Mexican kid growing up in a migrant farm housing community. Reminded me a little of Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, in that it finds the humanity, heartache and humor in lives filled with hardship.

[Alejandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories centered around Gordo and his family's experience as migrant workers in the San Juan Bautista area and Watsonville, Ca. The Goodread's description of the book describes it as "scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within". Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Steinbeck's work. Truly. Steinbeck was a Salinas native and he portrayed the lives of farmworkers with empathy and humility while shining a light on their treatment and living conditions in many of his books. It's just. Steinbeck never lived the life of a migrant/farm worker. He was a close observer, but he didn't experience it firsthand. He didn't have the Salinas Valley soil caked on his hands and embedded deep in his nails after working all day hunched over. What I'm saying is, in some ways Jaime Cortez is more Steinbeck than Steinbeck when it comes to writing about the experiences of migrant/farm workers.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars?

Add this to the list of wonderful short story collections of 2021 (Milk, Blood, Heat, Filthy Animals, and Afterparties also immediately come to mind)

I fell in love with Gordo from the very first story. The oddly relatable quirkiness of stories like Jesus Donut and Chorizo couldn't help but bring a smile to my face, and I loved reading about this slice of America not often represented in fiction.

While I very much enjoyed the tapestry of Watsonville painted in the second half of the collection, I definitely wanted more Gordo-centered stories. It was enlightening seeing how characters from earlier in the collection ended up later in life, but perhaps an alternating pattern of Gordo-centered, not Gordo-centered would have been more effective. (Or maybe I’m just unfairly comparing it to Filthy Animals or Afterparties, and the structure of those collections)

Either way, really enjoyed this!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not normally a fan of short stories, but these stories each connected to each other in a way that felt more like reading a memoir or a description. The stories are of the children of migrant families and their everyday lives and community traditions. It is set mostly in the 1970's and describes a more innocent time, in some ways. If Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting resonates with you, you'll enjoy this book. I thought it was a lovely read and I only hope there are more stories to come.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those rare short story collections in which every story is at least good, usually great. The interweaving is precise and delicate, so that after reading I felt an intimacy with Gordo’s narrative without feeling like the continuity between stories was overkill. The voice here is distinct, and I love the way that Cortez refused to “switch” between a youth/vernacular register and a more “authoritative” one — they are as integrated as the stories themselves to the larger story of Gordo’s life.

[Woody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captivating stories about life in migrant labor camps in central California told by Jaime Cortez as experienced by his ten-year-old self. Fascinating! They really take you inside another world that is harsh and unfiltered.