06 Sep / Gordo by Jaime Cortez [in Shelf Awareness]
As a visual artist and performer, Jaime Cortez has always been telling stories. He gets literal in his debut, Gordo, an impressive collection featuring the titular Gordo, a preteen middle child of Mexican American farm workers in California’s 1970s Central Coast. Gordo is one of many children growing up together at the Gyrich Farms Worker Camp. Theirs is a tight-knit community, although Gordo’s family eventually leaves for better opportunities and misses the easy camaraderie of sharing tight quarters.
Each of Cortez’s interlinked 11 stories, mostly narrated by Gordo, are poignant coming-of-age glimpses of growing up “different” – poor, Mexican American, perhaps gay – and realizing that “it’s not a good idea to be different.” Pa hopes a lucha libre boxing kit might train Gordo away from being fat and effeminate in “El Gordo.” Gordo watches another family, more disadvantaged than his, receive help from parents and grandparents in “Chorizo.” He witnesses adults behaving badly in “Cookie” (the devolution of a mother/daughter relationship), “Fandango” (a violent ending to a night of drunken revelry), and “Alex” (a transgender neighbor who abuses his young undocumented partner). Gordo experiences his first death among his grandparents’ friends in “Ofelia’s Last Ride.” The future gets briefly acknowledged in two stories about Raymundo, bullied at school for being gay in “The Problem of Style,” and lauded for his hairstyling prowess as an adult in “Raymundo the Fag.”
Cortez writes with clear affection and indulgence for Gordo, his family and friends, as they navigate uncertain destinies and still-forming identities. “Tell your story or it’ll drown you,” one character tells another – affirming once again the lifesaving powers of storytelling.
Discover: Eleven interlinked stories deftly and poignantly explore coming-of-age in the 1970s as the son of poor, Mexican American immigrants in California’s Central Coast.
Review: “Fiction,” Shelf Awareness, August 27, 2021
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2021