In the opening piece, “Where Lost Things Reside,” rumor has it that Old Man Baldemar has died. Stories about the old geezer’s demise abound: he died of pneumonia; he was hit by a car, even killed by the big C. All Yoli Mendoza knows is that she’s lost the income from helping the perverse recluse with his grocery shopping. Entering the house she has never been allowed in before, she’s shocked to find it’s much larger than it appears from the street. And even odder, it’s full of items, each tagged with a name, city and date. There’s a room full of cell phones, drawers packed with rings, trays and trays of plastic lids … socks, watches, wallets, glasses! Was Baldemar the caretaker of all of the things that have been lost, no matter the time, city or even country?
Weird things continue to happen to the characters that renowned author and filmmaker Jesús Salvador Treviño introduced in his captivating debut, The Fabulous Sinkhole and Other Stories. At the theme park where Choo Choo Torres works, people begin to disappear—and then reappear slightly changed; are they moving back and forth between alternate universes? Charlie Villalobos keeps blacking out and losing days; could it be that he exists only in someone’s dreams? And Jeannie de la Cruz has very distinct memories of seeing her partner Gale run over by a speeding taxi in Mexico City; how can she still be alive?
Many in these interrelated stories have left Arroyo Grande to follow their dreams, but in the raucous title story they all return to their home town in a resounding confirmation of the power of community. Weaving magical realism with issues of loss, memory and identity, Jesús Salvador Treviño once again confirms his place as a powerful storyteller in Chicano—and American—literature.
Click here to listen to an interview with Jesús Salvador Treviño about Return to Arroyo Grande.
Winner, 2016 American Book Award
Honorable Mention, 2016 International Latino Book Awards
Winner, 2016 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award
“Jesús Salvador Treviño is a trailblazer in Latino speculative arts. The intertwined stories in this latest book dispense with some of the modern fads in genre fiction, taking an old-school approach to plotting reminiscent of “The Twilight Zone” and “Outer Limits.” The inhabitants of the border town of Arroyo Grande find their lives shaken in unexpected ways as interdimensional rifts yank people and objects from one reality into another. A deceased matriarch appears to the scattered protagonists of the other tales, urging them to come home to fight against land developers looking to convert an old barrio into a gambling complex. The fantastic resolution to this problem harkens back to Treviño’s other collections in a richly rewarding way.”—The Monitor
“The description of the tight-knit Chicano community is illuminating, water-tight, and rich with entertaining details…A fun read full of imagination and joy.”—NewPages
“If you long to go back to the neighborhood, you will read Return to Arroyo Grande with huge joy. Here is the Chicano homeland which, through unforeseen, sudden and unsettling falls into fantastic wormholes, its present, past, and future become a strange right now. Treviño’s stories are as much graphic novel or comic book, except he’s done it all in black and white, with words alone. A fun read, the book is much richer than that alone.”—Dagoberto Gilb
“RETURN TO ARROYO GRANDE is a fascinating and enjoyable journey into the paranormal. The question is: Do the stories present the fractured psyches of the characters, or do they really live in a parallel universe connected only by wormholes? I read the book as a thriller, hurrying from one story to the next, hoping to learn the answer. Who is dead? Who is alive? What is real? Kudos to Trevino for this most imaginative book.”—Rudolfo Anaya
JESÚS SALVADOR TREVIÑO is an award-winning filmmaker, known for his pioneering documentaries and feature films about the Chicano experience. He is the author of The Fabulous Sinkhole and Other Stories (Arte Público Press, 1995), The Skyscraper that Flew (Arte Público Press, 2005) and a critically acclaimed memoir, Eyewitness: A Filmmaker’s Memoir of the Chicano Movement (Arte Público Press, 2001).
