William Goyen (1915–1983)

More like a poetic apparition, narrated in earthy Spanglish by a Chicana hermaphrodite squatting in the dry rut of an East Texas riverbed beneath a crumbling railroad trestle. Arcadio was raised in a brothel above a Chinese restaurant in Memphis, then indentured to a roving freakshow-carnival after her father disappeared. S/he has stories to tell, and all the torments of Man & Woman in one body. His mother charmed a rattlesnake with “La Paloma,” and killed a man mid-coitus. A younger show more half-brother died of hunger. A paralyzed man took his first steps in 38 years and was arrested for jaywalking. Jesucristo was a red-headed woman. Rathawks and moaning bullfrogs and a lock of hair from a dead girl in a tobacco pouch. A dwarf burned to ashes in a posture of prayer, after a carnival fire set by a hairlipped lion, still on the loose. A man spoke so many foul words that the Lord one day just twisted his mouth around under his ear and left it that way. Everyone has at one time or another escaped from a Missoura jail. Everything has a machine in it except God. The Devil always whispers in our left ear. “What kind of salvation keeps me from killing my father?” with crazy orange wine eyes and a curse between his legs. Arcadio he carries his stump-kneed father out of town on his back until the old man throws himself to the ground, tears off his clothes in a whirl of red dust and clubs himself to death with his infernal member. It may be a Christian parable, but I don’t know. Is everyone forgiven? show less

I'm a Texan who usually avoids reading Texan writers, but Goyen's work is thrilling, amazing, evocative, fast-paced and also very sensual and religious/spiritual.

It's been 25 years since I've read this book, and I remember next to nothing about it other than being utterly swept away by it. (I got it as a freebie when subscribing to Triquarterly--editor Reginald Gibbons seems to be a big Goyen fan also; his press also republished House of Breath). It's time to buy another copy!

He's unlike any show more Texas writer I know, esp in terms of imagery and style. Maybe Cormac McCarthy, but without the Wild West claptrap in McCarthy (don't get me wrong--I like it!) and much more accessible. show less

William Goyen era un completo desconocido para mí, hasta la lectura de esta recopilación con algunos de sus cuentos. Goyen tiene su origen en el Sur de Estados Unidos, y forma parte del llamado gótico sureño, que tantos grandes escritores ha dado, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, etc.

Goyen habla del profundo sur, del Ku Klux Klan, de incesto, de lazos familiares, tormentas y huracanes, de la memoria de su tierra, en una serie de relatos donde lo show more alegórico y lo cotidiano se dan la mano.

La prosa de Goyen no es mala, pero no ha llegado a cautivarme ni a sugerirme toda la grandeza de lo que narra. Sus cuentos me han dejado, en su gran mayoría, realmente indiferente, y los he encontrado demasiado recargados en ciertos momentos.

De los diez cuentos incluidos en la recopilación, destaco los siguientes, que son los que más me han gustado:

Preciada puerta, donde un chiquillo encuentra a un hombre moribundo en el campo y al dar la noticia a su padre, éste decide llevarlo a su casa, justo cuando se avecina un huracán.

La canasta, donde unas hermanas acuden todas las primaveras al cementerio para adecentar las tumbas de sus familiares.

La misma sangre, donde se narra la amistad de dos niños, primos, cuando uno de ellos ha de acudir a vivir a su casa.

Zamour, historia de una herencia, donde se narra la historia de tres hermanas, dos de ellas con la maldición de tener barba, y la tercera con ese miedo constante por sufrir lo mismo que ellas, y, harta, huye de su hogar.

El coyote, donde un padre se empeña, junto a varios conocidos y su hijo, en salir en persecución de un coyote que ha matado alguno de sus pavos. show less