The University of Arizona Press
May 31, 2023
“A map of 1,001 novels to show us where to find the real America” includes two books from the UA Press. Find your America by reading the story written by Susan Straight in the Los Angeles Times, or go directly to the Storymap here. UA Press books featured are a collection of short stories and a novel. To discover El Paso and beyond, read The Last Tortilla and Other Stories by Sergio Troncoso. To discover a real Los Angeles neighborhood, read The Book of Want by Daniel A. Olivas.
About The Last Tortilla and Other Stories:
Troncoso’s El Paso is a normal town where common people who happen to be Mexican eat, sleep, fall in love, and undergo epiphanies just like everyone else. His tales are coming-of-age stories from the Mexican-American border, stories of the working class, stories of those coping with the trials of growing old in a rapidly changing society. He also explores New York with vignettes of life in the big city, capturing its loneliness and danger. Troncoso sets aside the polemics about social discomfort sometimes found in contemporary Chicano writing and focuses instead on the moral and intellectual lives of his characters. The twelve stories gathered here form a richly textured tapestry that adds to our understanding of what it is to be human.
About The Book of Want:
When Moses descended Mount Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments, he never could have foreseen how one family in Los Angeles in the early twenty-first century would struggle to live by them. Conchita, a voluptuous, headstrong single woman of a certain age, sees nothing wrong with enjoying the company of handsome—and usually much younger—men . . . that is, until she encounters a widower with unusual gifts and begins to think about what she really wants out of life. A delightful family tapestry woven with the threads of all those whose lives are touched by Conchita, The Book of Want is an enchanting blend of social and magical realism that tells a charming story about what it means to be fully human.
