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EVERY NIGHT IS LADIES’ NIGHT

Name: EVERY NIGHT IS LADIES’ NIGHT
Author: Michael Jaime-Becerra
ISBN: 0-06-055962-4

STORIES

by Michael Jaime-Becerra ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2004

The writing is fluid, the details brisk and vivid as newcomer Jaime-Becerra reveals his characters without judging them...

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Ten connecting stories, set mostly in 1980s California, deftly pursue a loosely connected family of Mexican-Americans with little money or education.

Jaime-Becerra’s protagonists are ice cream vendors, tattoo artists, and teenagers navigating American values in El Monte, California, while their old-world parents glower uncomprehendingly at the new ways. In “The Corrido of Hector Cruz,” a young father-to-be is sent out for food to satisfy the cravings of his pregnant wife, whom he adores. The two are barely scraping by on low-wage jobs when they learn that Hector’s nephew—his dead brother’s young son, Lencho, fresh from reform school—must come live with them. Yet what might have been disastrous turns out—as happens often here—a kind of salvation for both the couple and for Lencho, who has no real skills but a lot of heart. Subsequently, in “Riding with Lencho,” we learn that he becomes an auto mechanic, then gets by on disability when his ex-girlfriend scalds him with boiling coffee after growing enraged at his going to night school. In another familial tangent, the young narrator of the fine first story, “Practice Tattoos,” watches in sad resignation as the fights between his mother and sister, Gina, over her boyfriends eventually propel her out the door forever. Later, Gina and her tattoo artist steady, Max, resurface in another eponymous story, trying to stay in love despite the louche types who supply Max’s trade. The characters here want more than anything to do the right thing—fall in love and steer a better course, for example, though in a couple of stories, like “Media Vuelta,” we’re given a glimpse of the earlier generation back in Mexico: mariachi guitarist Jose Luis’s courtship, for instance, and loss of his sweetheart.

The writing is fluid, the details brisk and vivid as newcomer Jaime-Becerra reveals his characters without judging them harshly. Learn Spanish in richly affecting narratives from a strong new talent.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2004

ISBN: 0-06-055962-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Rayo/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003

Categories:

SHORT STORIES

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THE POINT

STORIES

by Charles D’Ambrosio ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 1995

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This debut collection of stories from a crackerjack craftsman lacks a coherent theme, almost as if D'Ambrosio had chosen a magic number (seven, in this case) of complete stories and decided to publish them when he reached it. That said, each of these stories, some of which appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere, is excellent in its own right. D'Ambrosio consistently presents new ways of seeing familiar things. Sometimes the thematic fragmentation actually works to his advantage, forcing the reader to begin each tale with a clean slate, but more often it is disconcerting. In the poignant title story, a young boy is enlisted by his mother to walk a drunken guest home from a party, uncertain whether she is coming on to him Mrs. Robinsonstyle or not, and along the way he recalls the suicide of his father. In ``American Bullfrog,'' another confused young man hesitates to carve up his frog in freshman biology class and runs away from home—but lamely can think of nowhere to go beyond his buddy's house. There are also a few stories of vacant people unable to express their emotions. In ``Her Real Name,'' a man picks up a religious young woman working at an Illinois gas station who believes that her cancer is in remission due to an act of God. Separation is present here, too: ``Open House'' is narrated by one son in a large family whose parents are divorcing after a long, violent marriage and whose brother Jackie was a teenage junkie who killed himself. ``Lyricism'' has two sections: In the first, a man and woman visit Lake Placid on vacation in October; in the second, the man wanders alone on a January evening. Individually, these are imaginative stories, but they're linked by few common threads of theme, place, or literary structure.

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1995

ISBN: 0-316-17144-1

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994

Categories:

SHORT STORIES

- BOOK REVIEW
LOITERING
by Charles D’Ambrosio

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DEAD FISH MUSEUM
by Charles D’Ambrosio

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THE DIXON CORNBELT LEAGUE

AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES

by W.P. Kinsella ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1995

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Kinsella seems to be living off the capital of Shoeless Joe (1982) in this collection of sketches and one-trick ponies—more throwaways than fictions—about the bush leagues. In the title story, basically a footnote to the movie Field of Dreams (which was based on Shoeless Joe), Mike Houle, a promising ballplayer who chokes in the clutch, is sent by his agent to Iowa, where he is supposed to work his way back to the big time by playing for a small-town team. He soon discovers that the team plays intrasquad baseball exclusively; it's simply an excuse to recruit eligible bachelors. Houle doesn't complain, however; while staying with a local family, he's fallen in love with the girl intended for him. The piece is clever, cute, and sentimental, and the same might be said for most of this collection. In ``Searching for January'' Roberto Clemente, killed years ago in a plane crash, returns from the dead in search of January 1973, when time stopped for him. ``The Fadeaway'' shows Christy Mathewson (also returning from the Great Beyond) teaching a manager about his fadeaway pitch. In ``The Baseball Wolf'' a player becomes a werewolf and convinces the narrator to turn into an owl with a taste for kangaroo rats. ``The Darkness Deep Inside'' at least has a satirical spin with a little bite: A player who's born again loses his competitive zest and becomes, by virtue of his peaceful demeanor, a ``disruptive force'' on the team. Neither as surprising or comic as T. Coraghessan Boyle, nor as wry and smirky as Bruce Jay Friedman, Kinsella settles for corn pone and tepid standup routines here, instead of teasing magic from ordinary lives as he does in his best work. Minor-league material.