An astonishing new talent, Rigoberto González writes with a clarity of the senses that pulls the reader into a marvelous and unfamiliar world. The sidewalk preacher, the umbrella salesman, the nurse on the graveyard shift, the professional mourner— all allow González a clandestine glimpse of their lives. Crackling with the dry electricity of the desert and flashing with the brilliant colors of Mexico, González's poems are rooted in the fertile soil beneath poverty's dust, the border's violence, and longing's desolation.

So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks: POEMS (National Poetry Series)

Literature & Fiction

González, Rigoberto

United States

University of Illinois Press

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as)

Heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal, Butterfly Boy is a unique coming out and coming-of-age story of a first-generation Chicano who trades one life for another, only to discover that history and memory are not exchangeable or forgettable. Growing up among poor migrant Mexican farmworkers, Rigoberto González also faces the pressure of coming-of-age as a gay man in a culture that prizes machismo. Losing his mother when he is twelve, González must then confront his father’s abandonment and an abiding sense of cultural estrangement, both from his adopted home in the United States and from a Mexican birthright. His only sense of connection gets forged in a violent relationship with an older man. By finding his calling as a writer, and by revisiting the relationship with his father during a trip to Mexico, González finally claims his identity at the intersection of race, class, and sexuality. The result is a leap of faith that every reader who ever felt like an outsider will immediately recognize.
2007 Finalist, Randy Shilts Awards for Gay Nonfiction, Publishing Triangle Winner, American Book Awards, Before Columbus Foundation

History

University of Wisconsin Press

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Rigoberto González, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, takes a second piercing look at his past through a startling new lens: hunger. The need for sustenance originating in childhood poverty, the adolescent emotional need for solace and comfort, the adult desire for a larger world, another lover, a different body—all are explored by González in a series of heartbreaking and poetic vignettes. Each vignette is a defining moment of self-awareness, every moment an important step in a lifelong journey toward clarity, knowledge, and the nourishment that comes in various forms—even "the smallest biggest joys" help piece together a complex portrait of a gay man of color who at last defines himself by what he learns, not by what he yearns for. Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Publishing Triangle “Told in a series of revealing vignettes and poems, González’s Autobiography of my Hungers turns moments of need and want into revelations of truth and self-awareness, creating the portrait of an artist that is complex if not entirely complete.”—El Paso Times “Through his provocative vignettes, González communicates a lifetime of struggle for affirmation and self-acceptance.”—Make/Shift

Autobiography of My Hungers (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Arts & Literature

In the second of his trio of acclaimed memoirs, Rigoberto González looks at his past through a startling lens: hunger. A childhood of neglect, adolescent yearnings, and adult desire for a larger world, another lover, a different body―all are explored by González in a series of heartbreaking and poetic vignettes.

Autobiography of My Hungers (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog)

Burdened by poverty, illiteracy, and vulnerability as Mexican immigrants to California's Coachella Valley, three generations of González men turn to vices or withdraw into depression. As brothers Rigoberto and Alex grow to manhood, they are haunted by the traumas of their mother's early death, their lonely youth, their father's desertion, and their grandfather's invective. Rigoberto's success in escaping―first to college and then by becoming a writer―is blighted by his struggles with alcohol and abusive relationships, while Alex contends with difficult family relations, his own rocky marriage, and fatherhood. Descending into a dark emotional space that compromises their mental and physical health, the brothers eventually find hope in aiding each other. This is an honest and revealing window into the complexities of Latino masculinity, the private lives of men, and the ways they build strength under the weight of grief, loss, and despair.

What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Standing over two graves, Rigoberto González studies the names "Ramon" and "María" under the family name "González." "She was María Carrillo, not María González," he thinks. His grandmother is missing. So begins González's memoir, a journey to recover a more complete picture of his grandmother, who raised him following his mother's death.&nbsp;

Abuela in Shadow, Abuela in Light (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Pivotal Voices, Era of Transition gathers Rigoberto González’s most important essays and book reviews, many of which consider the work of emerging poets whose identities and political positions are transforming what readers expect from contemporary poetry. A number of these voices represent intersectional communities, such as queer writers of color like Natalie Díaz, Danez Smith, Ocean Vuong, and Eduardo C. Corral, and many writers, such as Carmen Giménez Smith and David Tomás Martínez, have deep connections to their Latino communities. Collectively, these writers are enriching American poetry to reflect a more diverse, panoramic, and socially conscious literary landscape. Also featured are essays on the poets’ literary ancestors—including Juan Felipe Herrera, Alurista, and Francisco X. Alarcón—and speeches that address the need to leverage poetry as agency. This book fills a glaring gap in existing poetry scholarship by focusing exclusively on writers of color, and particularly on Latino poetry. González makes important observations about the relevance, urgency, and exquisite craft of the work coming from writers who represent marginalized communities. His insightful connections between the Latino, African American, Asian American, and Native American literatures persuasively position them as a collective movement critiquing, challenging, and reorienting the direction of American poetry with their nuanced and politicized verse. González’s inclusive vision covers a wide landscape of writers, opening literary doors for sexual and ethnic minorities.

Pivotal Voices, Era of Transition: Toward a 21st Century Poetics (Poets On Poetry)

Essays & Correspondence

University of Michigan Press

In the grim reality of Southern California’s grape fields, even the sun is a dark spot. For the migrant grape pickers in Crossing Vines, Rigoberto González’s novel that spans a single workday, the sun is a constant, malevolent force. The characters endure back-breaking, monotonous work as they succumb to the whims of their corrupt bosses. Each minute the sun rises higher in the sky is an eternity.
The textures, smells, sights, and emotions of their daily existences engulf the lives of the Mexican laborers. Scarce drinking water, sweltering heat, splintered fingers, contempt for the job, and violence toward one another compose their unflinchingly dark world. In González’s brutally honest story, the characters are compelled forward mercilessly by the rising crisis that envelops their interconnected stories. This uncompromisingly thought-provoking tale gives names and faces to the anonymous agricultural laborers, whose lives are like the tangled vines of the fruits of their labor.
Not since Tomás Rivera’s . . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him has a novel converged on the lives of migrant workers so profoundly. Like Rivera, González employs nostalgia for Mexican tradition as he looks at the family feuds, economic injustices, and racism prevalent in the migrant worker experience.

Crossing Vines: A Novel (Volume 2) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

University of Oklahoma Press

Men Without Bliss (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series) (Volume 6)

In cities and fields, Mexican American men are leading lives of quiet desperation. In this collection of thirteen startling stories, Rigoberto González weaves complex portraits of Latinos leading ordinary, practically invisible lives while navigating the dark waters of suppressed emotion—true-to-life characters who face emotional hurt, socioeconomic injustice, indignities in the workplace, or sexual repression. But because their culture expects men to symbolize power and control, they dare not risk succumbing to displays of weakness.
González shines an empathetic light into the shadows of Mexican culture to portray characters who suffer in silence—men both straight and gay who must come to terms with their grief, loneliness, and pain. By exploring the private moments of men trapped inside unforgiving stereotypes, he critiques long-held assumptions of Latino behavior. He shows us individuals who must break out of various closets to become fully realized adults, and makes us feel the emotional pain of men in a culture that recognizes only the pain and hardship of women.
Men without Bliss conveys the silent suffering of all men, not just Latinos. It will open readers’ eyes to unexpected facets of Latino culture, and perhaps of their own lives.

Men without Bliss (Volume 6) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by González, Rigoberto. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by González, Rigoberto

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by González, Rigoberto. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks: POEMS (National Poetry Series)

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as)

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as)

Autobiography of My Hungers (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Autobiography of My Hungers (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog)

What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Abuela in Shadow, Abuela in Light (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies)

Pivotal Voices, Era of Transition: Toward a 21st Century Poetics (Poets On Poetry)

Crossing Vines: A Novel (Volume 2) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

Men without Bliss (Volume 6) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)