These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters – who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.
A "Best Book of August" by Bustle, Orion Magazine, and Alta
“[Gordo] gives the reader an unobstructed view into the lives of those who are often relegated to statistics and political talking points: people who come to the States for a better life for themselves and their offspring …The strength of Cortez’s work is that he lays out these stories without defining his characters by their worst actions, showing us people who are closer to reflections of ourselves than we think, even if they do not look like us, or come from the places we call home. And this is the book’s superpower: the cultivation of empathy.” ―New York Times Book Review
“Funny and incredibly charming, despite highlighting the acute poverty of the camp’s Latino migrant residents…Cortez, a Bay Area author, masterfully navigates adverse conditions of migrant life while prioritizing in these stories the way people adapt to their circumstance ― managing to find joy and amusement, love and triumph, that which makes us delightfully human ― amid its challenge.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“A lovely book that masterfully evokes 1970s California, but manages, nonetheless, to feel truly universal…. The town that inspired John Steinbeck has a new literary star.” ―NPR
“Intimate and irreverent… This hilarious short story collection gives incisive glimpses of blue-collar Mexican American life.” ―Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Like Diane Arbus or Weegee, Cortez depicts warts-and-all moments of vulnerability precisely, sometimes even harshly, and without sentiment... Cortez artfully frames these characters’ daily struggles and captures them in the freeze-frame flash of a master at work." ―BookPage , starred review
"Exuberant... A bright, clear voice that avoids stereotypes and navigates issues of identity with ease... Readers will be delighted." ―Publishers Weekly
"These stories are elemental and unfussy, their emotional hearts affecting and memorable. [They] serve as unvarnished, even fond, testaments to a tough, queer life." —Kirkus (starred review)
“Cortez’s dialogue, timing, and humor is quick, dark and hilarious and the voice of Gordo, singular and soaring, full of naivete and grit that wrangles humor and human complexity with serious high-stake themes… Gordo, like Winesburg, Ohio, is capable of changing not only what it means to be American today, but what American literature can be… Hands down, top debut of 2021.” —Kerri Arsenault, Literary Hub
'"What a voice, what a charming, idiosyncratic voice! Cortez tells the untold stories of California. Set what you know aside, lay your expectations on the couch next to you, put your feet up, pick up this book, and journey into a land as real and complex as the state itself." —Rabih Alameddine
“What if David Sedaris and Richard Rodriguez were the same person? What if it was possible to tell stories about farmworkers and Latinx rural people with hilarity, queerness, tenderness, and poetic precision? What if Jaime Cortez existed and had a book coming out and you were lucky enough to read it in a few months’ time?” —Rebecca Solnit
“Some people have to walk around with so many sad stories. They have to get up, brush their teeth, wash their face, go to work like everybody else, but they’re not like everyone else. Jaime Cortez is a wise guy with a wide heart, who sees what ‘no one else wants to see.’ His funny/tragic tales, luminescent with love, are lanterns for our dark times.” —Sandra Cisneros
