There’s no denying it, media culture has ushered in a new era of visibility for gays in America. Yet somehow the gay Latino doesn’t fit into this sound-bite identity and usually isn’t included in national media images. Rane Arroyo offers a corrective. Known primarily as a poet and playwright representing the gay Latino community, Arroyo has also been publishing prose throughout his career and now gathers into this book a storm of writing that has been gaining strength, drop by drop, for more than ten years. How to Name a Hurricane collects short stories and other fictions depicting Latino drag queens and leather men, religious sinners and happy atheists, working class heroes and cyberspace vaqueros—a parade of characters that invites readers to consider whether one is more authentic a gay Latino than another. Whereas actual hurricanes are given names, the gays given voice in this collection must name themselves—and these narratives in turn reveal something of the "I" of Hurricane Rane. Whether portraying a family gathering as Brideshead Revisited with a mambo soundtrack, recounting the relationship of transvestite Louie/Lois and her bisexual Superman, or bemoaning "feeling as unsexy as an old bean burrito in a 7-11 microwave," Arroyo tracks the heartbeat of his characters through a shimmering palette of styles. Here are monologues, a story in verse, and other experimental forms appropriate to experimental lives—all affirming the basic human rights to dignity, equality, love, and even silliness. When the AIDS epidemic first hit, many Latino families destroyed any remembrances of their gay and bisexual sons that might betray their pasts to la familia or el pueblo. Arroyo’s writings return the ghosts of those sons to the families, bars, dance clubs, and neighborhoods where they belong. By penetrating to the I’s of narrative hurricanes, these stories honor the survivors of our ongoing cultural storms.
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“Arroyo’s writing is exciting and original.” —Multicultural Review “An entertaining, intriguing, fascinating, and eye-opening collection of works.” —Bloomsbury Review
About the Author
Rane Arroyo's previous collections include The Singing Shark, which won the Carl Sandburg Poetry Award. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Toledo.
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More About the Author
Rane Arroyo (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) began his writing career as a performance artist. He is also a playwright, fiction writer and poet. He teaches creative writing at the University of Toledo and serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). Arroyo's work has earned several awards, including the John Ciardi Poetry Prize, the Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize, an Ohio Arts Council Award for Excellence in Poetry, a Pushcart Prize and the Hart Crane Poetry Prize.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
How to write innovative, entertaining fiction . . .,
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This review is from: How to Name a Hurricane (Camino del Sol) (Paperback)
I'll admit I don't read a lot of short stories--I'm a more of a novel kind of guy. But I was totally won over and completely captivated by Rane Arroyo's first collection of fiction. His short stories are about gay and bisexual Latino men and their lovers, ex-lovers, future lovers and the families they all come from. Some of his written words made me laugh out loud; others made me incredibly sad. And being from the Windy City myself, I loved his references to various Chicago places like the bar, Little Jim's, and the vegetarian restaurant, The Chicago Diner--both of which are still in business on Halsted Street. But what I found most intriguing about Mr. Arroyo's stories was his experimentation with different writing styles. "The Blackie Soto Mystery Series" is a hilarious descriptive list of a series of mysteries about Blackie and his two friends who have wild adventures while solving crimes--kind of a gay Latino Hardy Boys. And "Rat Poison: The Book of Marcus Mar" tells the tale--in 101 sentences--of a young man committing suicide--I found it disturbing, sad and beautifully written. Other stories are told as monologues, in verse, and even as cyberspace emails. "How to Name a Hurricane" is a quick, wonderful read that you will have a difficult time putting down once you begin. I highly recommend that you check it out.
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