Little Mocos

John Paul Jaramillo

Hardcover

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Southern Colorado is home to "little mocos" Manito and his cousin Bea, both curious and sensitive, both tragically doomed and longing to live anywhere else. United in their agreement to escape onion fields and Ortiz family ghosts, the two stumble into their teen years with a stubborn brand of bad decisions and petty crimes. Against the cold and gray backdrop of the looming steel mill, Manito and Bea eventually piece together the unbending reality of their multi-generational family trauma, including an unanticipated close connection to local murderer Raymond "Cornbread" Vigil. The Ortiz family stories are minimal and elliptical in Little Mocos and reflect heartbreak and bleakness, but they also mirror strength and resiliency. Manito does not simply recover painful memories from his family; he begins to re-envision them. It is how Manito finds his own way to manhood and a glimpse of life outside of the county of orphans. John Paul Jaramillo, the award-winning author of this novel in stories, was listed as a Top 10 Young Latino Author to Watch and Read by Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature in 2013.

Book Details

Publisher: Twelve Winters Press
Publish Date: Jun 25th, 2017
Pages: 276
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.50in - 5.50in - 0.75in - 1.07lb
EAN: 9780998705712
Categories: • Literary• Hispanic & Latino - General

About the Author

Jaramillo, John Paul: - John Paul Jaramillo was born and raised in Southern Colorado. At Oregon State University he earned his MFA in creative writing (fiction) and currently works as Professor of English in the Arts and Humanities Department of Lincoln Land Community College-Springfield, Illinois. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including the Acentos Review, Palabra, A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art and Somos en Escrito. In 2013 his collection The House of Order was named an International Latino Book Award Finalist. In 2013 Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature listed Jaramillo as one of its Top 10 New Latino Authors to Watch and Read. His writing explores the Southern Colorado steel industry and neighborhoods as well as the link between family, trauma, and place. As Mary Jean Porter writes, "Jaramillo is writing about working in Southern Colorado farm fields, driving and drinking beer and smoking pot; visiting family members in the state penitentiary; about tattooed pregnant girls, dirty kids in laundromats and their desperate mothers, back through several generations. What saves these stories is the grace in which they are written."

Praise for this book

"These stories find John Paul Jaramillo hitting his stride as an acute observer and chronicler of hard and valuable lives. The writing conveys great warmth and understanding. This is a career to watch." --Tracy Daugherty, author of One Day the Wind Changed

"Besides the razor-sharp writing which brings even those characters whom we meet only briefly vividly and memorably to life, what compelled me was my affection and concern for the narrator, who sets out to record the stories of his elders, and through them, to understand the forces that have shaped and directed his own experience. The result is a collection of stories that holds together like a shattered vessel, whose fragments have been gathered and expertly glued. Manito himself, battered by drink and drugs and the abuses of combat, barely holds together sometimes -- but even at his lowest and darkest, the impulse remains in him to comfort and assist. It's this that saves him, and that sets this collection apart -- and above, in my opinion -- less forgiving depictions of people struggling to take control of their lives." --Jennifer C. Cornell, author of Departures