A
cover by Jaime Hernandez. Wow! I was impressed.
But
then, does the book live up to being compared to the classic comic
book Love and Rockets?
That's setting the bar pretty high . . .
I'm
happy to report that, yes, Frederick Luis Aldama's Long Stories Cut Short: Fictions from the Borderlands,
does live up to Jamie's eye-catching cover with characters springing
forth from all over Las Américas
It
also has impressive, comics-style interior art by the Mapache
Studios that packages the book a little closer to pop culture than
most non-genre story collections. Usually, we get impenetrable
examples of modernism in an attempt to set a highbrow, “literary”
tone. Aldama's story are powerful works of contemporary literature,
but they have an appeal a wide range of readers will enjoy.
Born
in Mexico City to a Guatemala-Irish American mother and a Mexican
father, Aldama means it when he talks about Borderlands in the
plural. Long Stories Cut Short
is wide in its scope of the Latinoid continuum – not just one
barrio, but views from many. And we don't get arguments over whose
barrio is doing things right.
These
are what they used to call “short shorts” way back when I was
just learning how to be a writer. “Flash fiction” is the catchier
term that's used these days. They get you to know complex characters
(Latino is always complicated, and carries controversial histories),
and puts you in their heads, and worlds (again plural), in just a
few pages a crack. They are all masterworks of style, structure, and
storytelling.
They
used to call these, “slice of life” stories.
And
they're not just cases for ethnic studies classes. They are a
pleasure to read.
No
spec fic, or magic realism, but fans of comics and genre fiction
attracted by the Jaime Hernandez cover will not be disappointed.
Ernest Hogan tries to write slices of life, but people keep mistaking it for
science fiction.
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