Gordo

This debut story collection “masterfully navigates adverse conditions of migrant life while . . . managing to find joy and amusement, love and triumph” (San Francisco Chronicle). Gordo brings readers inside a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. At the heart of these interrelated stories is a young, probably gay, boy named Gordo, who must find a way to contend with the notions of manhood imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. We also meet Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist who runs away from home one day with her mother’s boyfriend, Manny. And then there are Los Tigres, the twins who show up every season and whose drunken brawl ends with one of them rushed to the emergency room in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck. These scenes from Steinbeck Country are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious questions: Who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency when grown adults must fear for their lives and livelihoods? Gordo “announces a vibrant new voice on the literary scene, at once wise and authentic and supremely gifted” (Booklist, starred review). Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

The routines of daily life get blown apart when two brothers take in a plucky young houseguest.

A collection of comic strips by Robert Harvey that feature Gordo.

After many years of 'research' and 'on the job training' in dog behavior, I've become aware that there is, truly, a sea of parables, quotes, jokes and expressions acknowledging the marvelous fealty credited between dogs and man. Oh, sure, there are the exceptions and they receive extensive press and replay. Maybe, as they should. That's a deep question and one I'm not interested in exploring at this time. But all of this brings to mind my love of Gordo and his independence from me and yet his acceptance of me. I'm not proud of all my actions with Gordo...most of the negative driven by my own learned or inherent demons. We learned to accept each other's foibles, but, in the end, fourteen years after our joined odyssey began, Gordo and I had learned to love and forgive all else. And that's the greatest lesson achieved by Coleman, the guy who wrote and compiled this mini-epic.

This is the story of two golfers: one who loved the game and one who simply made it his living. The first golfer happens to be a really nice guy…someone you’d like to call your friend. The second golfer simply played golf for the enjoyment of destroying his opponents while earning a paycheck. In other words, he’s a real jerk.

High in the Inyo Mountains, between Owens Valley and Death Valley National Park, lies the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. Discovered in 1865, this silver town boomed to a population of 3,000 people in the hands of savvy entrepreneurs during the 1870s. As the silver played out and the town faded, a few hung on to the dream. By the early 1900s, Louis D. Gordon wandered up the Yellow Grade Road where freight wagons once traversed with silver and supplies and took a closer look at the zinc ore that had been tossed aside by early miners. The Fat Hill lived again, primarily as a small company town. By the last quarter of the 20th century, Jody Stewart and Mike Patterson found themselves owners of the rough and tumble camp that helped Los Angeles turn into a thriving metropolis because of silver and commercial trade. Cerro Gordo found new life, second to Bodie, as California's best-preserved ghost town.