Tincture
- a substance that colors, dyes or stains. Lethe Press's Tincture
imprint puts the stories of the GLBT community of color front and
center. The novels, anthologies, collections and essays of this
imprint promise to saturate literature with rich and vibrant hues
of contemporary queer culture.
For the first time since 1999, when the ground-breaking anthologies
Bésame Mucho and Virgins, Guerillas and Locas appeared, has a
collection of gay Latino fiction in English been published.
Prepare yourself to dance in a disco in Silver Lake, check out papis in
Orchard Beach, cross the border from Guatemala to Mexico on your way to
the U.S., see a puro macho bathe in a river in Puerto Rico, make love
under a full moon in the Dominican Republic, sigh at a tender moment in
an orange grove in Lindsay, visit a panadería in Kansas, see a
full blown birthday party in Juarez and be seduced by a young artist in
the South Bronx. These are some of the stories in this collection of 29
gay Latino writers from around the United States. There are “don’t
mess with me” divas, alluring bad boys and sexy teenagers, but also
empowered youth for whom being queer is not a question and a family that
grows wings on their heads. The infectious rhythms of House music
in New York City are adjacent to cumbia in Mexico, next to
reggaetón in Puerto Rico, alongside Latin pop in L.A. and
merengue in an east coast city. But the spectrum of experiences
and emotions that inhabit our days give these stories dimension and
gay/queer Latinos a common ground. The stories are vibrantly
varied and clearly connected in this “era of lost signals”* in which we
live.
*phrase from Ben Francisco’s “The Fermi Paradox”
Fiction by:
David Caleb Acevedo - Miguel Ángel Ángeles - Ricardo
Bracho - C. Adán Cabrera - Bronco Castro - Johnathan Cedano -
Booh Edouardo - Ben Francisco - Danny González - Rigoberto
González - Anthony Haro - W. Brandon Lacy Campos - Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes - Jimmy Lam - Miguel M. Morales - Bryan
Pacheco - Alfonso Ramírez - Guillermo Reyes - Charles
Rice-González - Alex G. Romero - Chuy Sánchez - Edwin
Sánchez - Rick J. Santos - Jesus Suarez - David Andrew Talamantes
- Justin Torres - Benny Vásquez - Charlie Vázquez -
Robert Vázquez-Pacheco
Growing up, ''fitting in'' was a completely foreign concept to James.
He was Asian, awkward, and poor in a sea of wealthy, white, attractive
Midwesterners. At college in Boston, however, the diversity of the new
world around him gives him hope that he can finally find his groove.
With his intensely logical and linear MIT mind, he identifies all the
parts of himself he believes are offensive to others, and methodically
changes them one by one. In the pursuit of total self transformation
including body, skin, hair, clothes, personality, and behavior James
becomes completely lost and bewildered, having lost any trace of the
person he once was. Along the way, he betrays himself several times for
love, lust, and money engaging in dangerous drug use and sex to please
his lover, Stan, and manipulating his admirer, Michael, to pay for
plastic surgery on his Asian eyes. Just when he thinks he has lost
himself for ever, tragedy at home forces him to reestablish contact
with the person he once was.
As
they embark on their final year of high school, the Fierce
Foursome—Maui, Trini, Isaac, and Liberace—decide to do something big,
something that will memorialize their friendships for when they all go
their separate ways and begin their new “adult” lives. Already
accustomed to the hardships that come with being openly gay in high
school (not to mention in their homes), the boys can’t begin to imagine
what they will be faced with when they set out to create Caliente
Valley High School’s first GLBTQ club. But once the Mariposa Club is
formed, they will not only have a place where they belong and that is
all their own, but it will be a place for future students who feel as
displaced as they do.
“In
this book about the hardships that come from being openly gay in high
school, the voices are strong and separate. Each of them shows his
personality as they work through their problems in a homophobic
community. The issues that they address—gays who stay in the closet,
parents who reject their sexual orientation, stereotypes of gay/lesbian
youth that don’t work—are realistically presented. And the dialog rings
wonderfully true!” —Nel Ward for the GLBT Roundtable of the American Library Association
" It was refreshing, for once, to read of gay guys that can live their
teen year more or less undisturbed, dreaming of boyfriends and of the
wonderful future attending them; sure some of them feel trapped, some of
them will try to shorten the way, but in the end, all of them will find
their way towards those dreams." —Elisa Rolle …read the full review
Honorable Mention 
