The Importance of a Piece of Paper: Stories [Paperback]

Jimmy Santiago Baca (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2005

In his first foray into short fiction, award-winning poet and memoirist Jimmy Santiago Baca explores the territory where old-world traditions meet new-world ambitions, and characters try to make something of themselves, while keeping their souls intact. In "Matilda's Garden," an old farmer pines for his wife of fifty years who died in her sleep one night months before. He is lured to the garden in the middle of the night by what he thinks is her presence, only to meet a gruesome fate. In "The Importance of a Piece of Paper," two siblings must face the brother who has betrayed them by selling his share of the family land, leaving an entire community vulnerable. In "The Three Sons of Julia," a long-suffering mother whose one request is that all her sons come home for the fourth of July, watches her dream burst as two of her sons-one a successful businessman and the other a hard-drinking ex-con-nearly destroy her house, and each other. Merging a refreshing innocence with a profound understanding of the world's brutality, The Importance of a Piece of Paper is a daring and arresting work that is at once fearless, tender, and inspiring.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The rural Southwest landscape of Baca's short stories is inhabited by outsiders: drug addicts and convicts, absentee mothers and runaways. Baca's first collection of fiction (he is the author of the memoir A Place to Stand and several books of poetry) paints a picture of Chicano life that is at once cruel and sweetly redemptive. In the best of these eight stories, gritty realism is deftly leavened by flights of lyricism. In "Enemies," a trio of newly released convicts find their hostilities giving way to fear and tenderness; in "Valentine's Day Card," an orphan becomes engrossed in a fantasy that his mother will come for a visit. Other stories are allegorical and softer around the edges. In the fairy tale-like "Matilda's Garden," an elderly farmer mourns the death of his beloved wife by working the land she cultivated. In the title story, the couple's three children-a lawyer, a cowboy and a former graduate student-fight over the farm they have inherited. Baca's characters are occasionally mired in overworked prose ("These were the absurd dreams of the foolish young boys they had been, dreams that were now eaten away like apple cores thrown out of a window for the crows of dawn to peck to pulp") and formulaic situations. Still, Baca has the ability to convey much in few words, and his precise use of detail delivers small, startling truths.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Baca is known for his poetry and memoir, A Place to Stand (2001), and his short fiction seems like second nature although this is his first short story collection. He writes poignantly about the sacrifices of mothers, the disappointments of family, and the heartbreaking losses of life, and is somehow able to merge life's wear-and-tear quality with its power to transform. Sometimes there's a strange weaving of the magical with the real, sometimes Baca's tales are brutal or realistically bitter, and they are often about deliverance. He sensitively portrays the troubling tension between Chicanos who want to rise above their upbringings, but turn, instead, to superficial obsessions with status and money, and those who fall into the trap of "victimness," and turn to violence, drugs, and destructive thinking. Baca has the potent ability to depict truths behind stereotypes, and speaks up for those who often have no voice. Surely this insightful collection will make people listen. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Edition edition (January 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802141811
• ISBN-13: 978-0802141811
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #977,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb, June 1, 2010

By 

Frances Cohen "Avid" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Importance of a Piece of Paper: Stories (Paperback)

As the leader of a group that reads short stories aloud to each other, this book
was a marvelous read because while of course it covers human emotions, it also
covers an area (the hispanic southwest) that our group is not very versed in.

His background is fascinating and his language skills are wonderful.

We all enjoyed the book thoroughly.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect shape when got to my house, January 7, 2010

By 

Virginia Velasquez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Importance of a Piece of Paper: Stories (Paperback)

This book was great and had many different stories that are combined to make it what it is.