Ghost of John Wayne — Ray Gonzalez

The vast Texas borderland is a place divided, a land of legends and lies, sanctification and sinfulness, history and amnesia, haunted by the ghosts of the oppressed and the forgotten, who still stir beneath the parched fields and shimmering blacktops. It is a realm filled with scorpion eaters and mescal drinkers, cowboys and Indians, Anglos and Chicanos, spirit horses and beat-up pickups, brujos and putas, aching passion and seething rage, apparitions of the Virgin and bodies in the Rio Grande.

In his first collection of short fiction, award-winning poet, editor, and anthologist Ray Gonzalez powerfully evokes both the mystery and the reality of the El Paso border country where he came to manhood.

Here, in a riverbed filled with junked cars and old bones, a young boy is given a dark vision of a fiery future. Under the stones of the Alamo, amid the gift shops and tour buses, the wraiths of fallen soldiers cry out to be remembered. By an ancient burial site at the bottom of a hidden canyon, two lovers come face to face with their own dreams and fears.

In these stories, Ray Gonzalez is a literary alchemist, blending contemporary culture with ancient tradition to give a new voice to the peoples of the border.