Elements

By Stephen D. Gutierrez

Elements is a wild ride through the barrios of East L.A.: two homeboys caught in a burglary, a Hollywood weirdo, a loner brooding on a drug deal, and a would-be writer cartwheeling across the landscape, falling down flat and getting up again in a series of stories displaying the confusion and angst, and the joys and beauties, of being Mexican American and being alive.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573660256
• ISBN13: 9781573660259
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: F2c
• Length: 197 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing Book

Great book. I especially loved the essays. It's refreshing to read an honest book in this day and age of writers trying to please the masses.

Would never have found this book if he wasn't my teacher

I began writing as soon as I was able, but I didn't start seriously writing until nearly a year and a half ago when I had my first class with Stephen Gutierrez. A modest man, he never read anything from this book to us, and sometimes I wish he had. One day I finally went up to him and asked him about his book that I'd heard of, and he said he'd get me a copy if I wanted one. He gave it to me, and I read it within twenty-four hours. Beautiful language, evocative, honest, and to the point. Addresses the specific, such as the neighborhood and growing up, and the broad, such as America's obsession with kidnappers and a heart-rending, beautiful passage about people coming into his live having to show their true face. This book is a reflection of the man I've come to know and respect--he practices what he preaches in the truest sense of the word, and I wouldn't be half the writer I am now without him and this book. If you cannot take a class with him, this book is the next best thing.

All the Elements of a Great Book

Stephen Gutierrez's "Elements: Short Stories" is a hybrid consisting of short fiction and personal essays where he traverses the intricate and never satisfied road to being both a Chicano and a writer in this great, imperfect country of ours. In his essays, Gutierrez offers an unflinching and always engrossing view into the mind of a struggling artist who is constantly battling his own self-doubt and left-handed compliments from peers while clinging to those all-important words of encouragement from his mentors and family members. His short fiction gives us unvarnished glimpses into the lives of Chicanos who suffer from the same type of struggles except this time in their day-to-day attempts - often futile - to draw some meaning from life or even death. This is an essential book for Latinos who have taken that crazy, unreasonable step to become writers. In sharp, honest and evocative language, this book will demonstrate to you that you are not alone.

Gutierrez's Elements:

This is a damn fine collection of short stories and personal essays. I think i enjoyed those the most, the essays, with their hard honesty and clear uses of language, to the point, no fat, no filler, no artificial preservatives. reminiscent of hemingway in that way (not to stroke the author's ego too much), and all the more powerful for it. some of the things in here just hit me; hit me with a big mallet of honesty in my sometimes empty chest. BAM! goes my sternum under the impact, exploding goo and red paste all over the linoleum floor.