The University of Arizona Press
What Others Say About Us
Stories
A man is visited by his now famous ex-boyfriend, and he ponders a life that might have been. A new roommate destabilizes the close friendship between two twenty-somethings. A homesick immigrant plans an eightieth birthday party for the neighborhood grouch. A grisly crime sweeps up an unassuming history teacher, throwing him into the role of outcast.
El Paso serves as a backdrop for many of stories in this deeply human debut collection by Jonathan Ayala. Offering a portrait of contemporary gay Chicano lives, Ayala’s characters contend with the complexities found in navigating belonging, homecoming, falling in love, falling out of love, friendship, and what it means to be Mexican American in the United States today.
These thirteen emotionally rich, character-driven stories are filled with humor, tenderness, and insight into love, friendship, and community.
“There’s an absolute tenderness to Jonathan Ayala’s fiction. His writing brims with compassion and reminds us of how healing stories can be.”—Oscar Cásares, author of Where We Come From
“The stories in What Others Say About Us celebrate the extraordinary found in ordinary lives of El Pasoans, from broken hearts and long-kept secrets to complex families and loving friends. The characters burrowed in and stayed with me long after I finished reading.”—Kimberly Garza, author of Between You a River
“What Others Say About Us explores the inner lives of bus drivers, schoolteachers, thespians, mothers, sons, friends, and lovers as they navigate how and who to love, where and when to make a home, what to take with them and what to leave behind. These stories roam from Chicago to DC to Los Angeles but always find their center in the rooted in-betweenness of El Paso, where so much is left unfinished and unspoken. Jonathan Ayala is writing in the company of the same authors spotted on one of his character’s bookshelves: John Rechy, Arturo Islas, and Benjamin Alire Sáenz. A remarkable debut.”—Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River
“Set against the rough, gritty borderlands of El Paso, these stories carry a Carver-esque precision and ache, illuminating the varied lives of the people who occupy this rugged terrain with startling authenticity. Here, characters drift through exile and belonging, love and estrangement, friendship and loss—raw, real people searching for connection in a country that keeps remaking them. Urgent, tender, and unflinching, this debut announces a vital new voice in American fiction.”—Tim Z. Hernandez, author of They Call You Back
“What Others Say About Us lights up with all sorts of interlopers, the lost loves and friends and family who come back and disrupt our lives just when we think we have it all figured out. As good stories do, they bring us to new places—from El Paso to DC to LA—with wonderful wit, sharp wisdom, and a hard-won depth of feeling.”—Manuel Muñoz, author of The Consequences
“Echoing silence and the exploration of love in all its forms, these stories enter us through the heart and ask us to inhabit the space of return—questioning, what does it mean to be bound by memory, distance, absence, language, family, and oneself? Haunting yet tender, these narratives are magnetic.”—Saúl Hernández, author of How to Kill a Goat and Other Monsters
