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Stories, Rooms and Loops
Arte Publico Press
April 2013
On Sale: March 30, 2013
ISBN: 1558857680
EAN: 9781558857681
Hardcover
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Fiction Family Life
In this collection of short and flash fiction, Daniel Chacón
examines peoples' interactions with each other, the impact
of identity and the importance of literature, art and music.
In one story, a girl remembers her father, who taught her to
love books and libraries. “A book can whisper at you, call
at you from the shelves. Sometimes a book can find you. Seek
you out and ask you to come and play,” he told her. Years
later, she finds herself pulling an assortment from the
shelves, randomly reading passages from different books and
entering into the landscapes as if each book were a
wormhole. Somehow one excerpt seems to be a continuation of
another, connecting in the way that birds do when they fly
from a tree to the roof of a house, making “an idea, a
connection, a tree-house.” Misconceptions about people, the responsibility of the
artist and conflicts about identity pepper these stories
that take place in the U.S. and abroad. In “Mais, Je Suis
Chicano,” a Mexican American living in Paris identifies
himself as Chicano, rather than American. “It's not my fault
I was born on the U.S. side of the border,” he tells a
French Moroccan woman when she discovers that he really is
American, a word she says “as if it could be replaced with
murderer or child molester.” Many of the stories are very short and contain images that
flash in the reader's mind, loop back and connect to earlier
ones. Other stories are longer, like rooms, into which
Chacón invites the reader to enter, look around and hang
out. And some are more traditional. But whether short or
long, conventional or experimental, the people in these
pieces confront issues of imagination and self. In “Sábado
Gigante,” a young boy who is “as big as a gorilla” must face
his best friend's disappointment that—in spite of his
size—he's a terrible athlete, and even more confounding, he
prefers playing dolls to baseball. Whether in Paris or
Ciudad Juárez, Chacón reveals his characters at their most
vulnerable in these powerful and rewarding stories,
anti-stories and loops.
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