Monstress: Stories
Lysley Tenorio
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0062059564
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“The debut of an electric literary talent. Brilliantly quirky, often moving, always gorgeously told….Bravo for this fabulous American fiction!”
—Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker
“A wonderful story collection that’s as wide and rich and complex as the geography it spans.”
— Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera
“Tenorio is a deep and original writer, and Monstress is simply a beautiful book.”
—Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters
A luminous collection of heartbreaking, vivid, startling, and gloriously unique stories set amongst the Filipino-American communities of California and the Philippines, Monstress heralds the arrival of a breathtaking new talent on the literary scene: Lysley Tenorio. Already the worthy recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a Stegner Fellowship, Tenorio brilliantly explores the need to find connections, the melancholy of isolation, and the sometimes suffocating ties of family in tales that range from a California army base to a steamy moviehouse in Manilla, to the dangerous false glitter of Hollywood.
“That’s not possible.” “There must be someone I can talk to. Some sort of boat I can take. I can bring you with me.” I close my eyes, trying to remember what I’m meant to say. “Please listen. You’re very sick, and the doctors—” “Your family must want to see you. I can get you to them.” “You need to understand. This is the best place—” “Tell me the way out.” He steps closer to the curtain, his silhouette growing darker. “Please,” he says, “tell me,” and when I say no he reaches for something
Guardians of Oa. With his dying breath Abin Sur asks, “Will you be my successor, Hal Jordan? Will you swear to use this ring to uphold justice throughout the universe?” “I swear it,” Jordan promises. He slips the ring onto his finger, and takes the Guardians’ Oath: Let those who worship evil’s might Beware my power—Green Lantern’s Light! For nearly four decades Hal Jordan will save the universe on countless occasions as the Green Lantern, one of Earth’s greatest champions. But in the 1990s,
tan. When seasons change, so does the color of my hair, back and forth from brown to black. Despite my roundish face I have a unique bone structure that captures both shadow and light in just the right places, so that in the proper lighting my face can be startling. And my eyes—somewhere between slanted gashes and perfect ovals—are of two colors: the right is as brown as wet earth, and the left is jet black, a perfect obsidian orb. I keep them behind slightly tinted eyeglasses. Fifteen years
entrance. “What about Uncle Willie?” I said, and my cousins said to forget him, that there was nothing we could do. I kept running, sweating in the thick polyester blazer, the name tag flopping up and down against my chest. I finally stopped at the long line of policemen trying to contain the thousands of fans who cried out, “Beatles, don’t leave us, Beatles, don’t go.” In the end, airport police broke up the fight, which lasted only minutes after we fled the scene. No arrests were made and the
around? Your head must be broken.” Vicente flicked Fortunado’s forehead twice, like he was checking the ripeness of a coconut. Fortunado swiped his arm away, and warm beer came spilling over Fortunado’s head. “Idiot!” Fortunado got to his feet. “You want to dance so badly? Then take them.” He took the tickets from his pocket and threw them to the floor, shoved Vicente aside, and walked off. In the washroom, he ran a red cocktail napkin under warm water, wiped his head and dabbed the beer from