Southwestern
American
Literature
Volume 38
Number 1
Southwestern American Literature
Fall 2012
1
Southwestern American Literature
Volume 38
Number 1
Fall 2012
Editor-in-Chief
Jesús F. de la Teja
Editor
David Norman
Associate Editor
Tammy Gonzales
Editorial Advisors
Jason Coates
William Jensen
Colin Pope
Editorial Assistants
Marcia Bilbo
Laura Ileana Cerda
Monica De Los Santos
Karen Eisman
Melissa Garza
Eric Hall
E.S. Nelson
Eric Wallenstein
Student Assistants
Jamie Alas
Olayemi Amona
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Southwestern American Literature
CONTENTS
Fall 2012
Editor’s Note
David Norman 6 Along the Borderline
Nonfiction
Sandra Cox 8 Crossing the Divide: Geography,
Subjectivity, and Transnationalism in
Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway
Micheal Sean Bolton 27
Fiction
Hank Cherry 40
Adam James Jones 51
The Angels Are Not Equal:
Border Identities in
Lucrecia Guerrero’s Chasing Shadows
Bexar County
Territories
Michael Pacheco 57 The Fix in El Pachuco
John Blanchard 69 Down Payment
Poetry
John Elliott 77 The Crows
Carrie Fountain 78 Prayer (Become a Buffalo)
79 Selling the House
Paul Ruffin 80 On Bierstadt’s “Indians Spear Fishing”
Review Essays
Octavio Quintanilla 82 Dreaming of the Return
David Norman 87 The Man of Many Silences
Southwestern American Literature
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Book Reviews
Steve Davis 94
Jason Mellard 95
Margaret DeBrecht 97
Sandra M. Mayo 99
E.S. Nelson 103
Brandon Jett 105
Monica De Los Santos 107
Herb Thompson 109
River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado
by Margie Crisp
Dwight Yoakam:
A Thousand Miles from Nowhere
by Don McLeese
The Folly of Jim Crow:
Rethinking the Segregated South
edited by Stephanie Cole
and Natalie J. Ring
Federal Fathers and Mothers:
A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933
edited by Cathleen D. Cahill
Queer Indigenous Studies:
Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics,
and Literature edited by Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley,
and Scott Lauria Morgensen
Chiricahua and Janos:
Communities of Violence
in the Southwest Borderlands, 1680-1880
by Lance R. Blyth
Border Rhetorics:
Citizenship and Identity
on the US-Mexico Frontier
edited by D. Robert DeChaine
With Blood in Their Eyes
by Thomas Cobb
Margo Wilson 111 The Madness of Mamá Carlota
by Graciela Limón
Laura Ileana Cerda 113 What Dies in Summer: A Novel
by Tom Wright
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Southwestern American Literature
Jean Braithwaite 114 I Don’t Cry, But I Remember:
A Mexican Immigrant’s Story of Endurance
by Joyce Lackie
Marcia Bilbo 117 On Top of Spoon Mountain
by John Nichols
Clay Reynolds 119
Robert Murray Davis 122
Sara Schlachter 124
Randy Lopez Goes Home
by Rudolpho Anaya
Tiger, Tiger and Other Stories
by Jerry Craven
Out of Time by Geoff Schmidt
Jennifer Belcik 126 Letters to the One-Armed Poet
by Nathan Brown
Roger Jones 129 The Memory of Water by Jack Myers
Contributors 132
Southwestern American Literature
5
CONTRIBUTORS
John Blanchard’s fiction has appeared in Santa
Barbara Review, Southwestern American Literature,
and in the anthology Best of the West 2010. He attended Pomona College and worked for several
years as a park ranger in Oakland, California, where
he lives with his wife and two children. Micheal Sean Bolton currently teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National
Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His writing applies
poststructuralist and posthuman theory to the interpretation of literature. His work has appeared in The
Flannery O’Connor Review, JNT: Journal of Narrative
Theory, and the anthology, The Philosophy of the Beats.
Hank Cherry is a documentary filmmaker who lives
in Los Angeles with his wife and two dogs. He has
worked as a chef, bar owner, and ranch hand. His work
has appeared in Slake Magazine, The Louisiana Review,
Artillery Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books,
Atlas Bower Review, and Cadillac Cicatrix. He writes a
column on the history of jazz for Offbeat magazine and
blogs at thenervousbreakdown.com.
Sandra Cox teaches contemporary American literature
and cultural studies at Shawnee State University. Her
work has been published in Antipodas, The Journal of
Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, and Studies in American
Indian Literature. When not walking her remarkable dog
or teaching her exceptional students, Dr. Cox can be found
working on her first monograph, which explores ethical
approaches to literary criticism of testimonial fiction.
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Southwestern American Literature
John Elliott worked as a biologist and has
taught at Denver School of the Arts. He has
written works on Federico García Lorca
and Salvador Dalí. Now retired, he spends
as much time as possible in the mountains
and deserts of the West when not working
on a play, poems, or a novel.
Carrie Fountain’s debut collection,
Burn Lake, was a 2009 National Poetry
Series winner and was published in 2010
by Penguin. Her poems have appeared
in American Poetry Review, Crazyhorse,
AGNI, and Southwestern American
Literature, among others.
Adam James Jones recently completed
his first novel, The Vendetta of Felipe
Espinosa. Recipient of the 2012
Homestead Foundation Fellowship from
the Western Writers of America, Adam
James Jones lives in Albuquerque where
he runs the history website,
www.rockymountainlegends.com.
David Norman edits Southwestern
American Literature and Texas Books
in Review. His work has appeared in
Memoir, Real South, Rio Grande Review,
American Literary Review, Southern Humanities Review, Image, and elsewhere.
He lives in San Antonio and teaches at
Texas State Universty-San Marcos.
Southwestern American Literature
133
Michael Pacheco is the author of the novel,
The Guadalupe Saints, and the novella,
Seeking Tierra Santa. His fiction and poetry
have appeared in The Gold Man Review,
Boxfire Press, The Acentos Review, Red Ochre
Press, Label Me Latina, 200 New Mexico
Poems, and other publications.
Paul Ruffin is a Texas State University
System Regents’ Professor at Sam Houston
State University, where he directs Texas
Review Press. He is the author of two novels,
four collections of short stories, four books
of essays, seven collections of poetry, and
editor or co-editor of a dozen other books.
Octavio Quintanilla’s poems have
appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review,
The Bitter Oleander, Los Angeles Review,
and elsewhere. He has been nominated
twice for a Pushcart Prize. He has earned
degrees from UT-Pan American and The
University of North Texas. He teaches literature and creative writing at Texas A&M
University-Kingsville.
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Southwestern American Literature