Best of Texas: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press) makes the Best of Texas 2019 list from Lone Star Literary Life. Thank you Michelle Newby Lancaster and Si Dunn.

“A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, an outstanding collection of connected short stories uniquely reflecting life along the troubled Texas-Mexico border, proves the continued vitality of short fiction as a form. Troncoso tells skillfully nuanced stories from the perspective of a poor immigrant’s son who has found success within the world of America’s elite universities and financial power, yet still feels adrift and alienated, seeking deeper meanings.”

https://www.lonestarliterary.com/content/best-texas-2019

Winners of 2019 Troncoso Reading Prizes

Thank you Suzy Marrufo, branch manager, and the entire staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library for your work on behalf of the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes. On December 18th, we held the ceremony to present the winners with certificates of achievement and gift cards from Barnes and Noble. I also gave each student a signed copy of one of my books.

The newly renovated Troncoso Branch Library looks beautiful. I arrived to an expanded parking lot, gorgeous light from the sunset coming in through the windows, and library patrons quietly reading books and magazines on the new furniture. The circulation desk was also redone. Bravo, City of El Paso, for investing in our local library! Even the reconstruction and widening of Alameda has been finished, so now the road to and from the library is also in great shape.

The 2019 winners of the Troncoso Reading Prizes are: Mirayah Arleene Flores and Anthony Morelos (1st place); Jocelyn Soria and Sofia Aguirre (2nd place); and Isabella Guerrero Cortes and Celine Guevara (3rd place).

I loved chatting with this year's winners and their parents about growing up in Ysleta, education, the importance of reading, and creating a reading culture at home. They asked many questions, and I was happy to have great conversations about how reading can foster concentration, self-worth, and a sense of self that helps you achieve your goals. The El Paso Public Library was where I learned to satisfy that intellectual hunger for ideas and stories, and I could see that hunger and focus in all of these students. Each of them reminded me of who I was many years ago. I love this community, and I will keep returning to Ysleta to award these prizes every year and to talk to families about how they can educate themselves and their children to gain a voice, to reach their goals, and to return and help others.


Every year, we award prizes for students who read the most books between September 15-November 15. The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card.
Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card.
Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card.

All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register for the 2020 prizes, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-212-0453.

Austin Public Library recommends A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) makes the recommended list by librarians at the Austin Public Library. I love public libraries, and on Wednesday (12/18) I'll be at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library in El Paso to give out the Troncoso Reading Prizes. So happy and grateful that librarians in Austin like my book. Support and fight for public libraries!

Austin Public Library: Recommended Titles

Interview in Blue Muse Magazine

Here's an interview I did with Emma Nelson at Blue Muse Magazine, a publication of Central
Connecticut State University. We met at the Connecticut Literary Festival. I love talking to students who are serious about writing, and Emma was an excellent interviewer. I hope you enjoy it.

"I followed Troncoso to the signing table and bought his new collection of stories, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son. The fifty-eight-year-old author is gregarious and generous; readers ask him questions and he listens intently. With a red pen and glasses tucked into his white-and-grey striped shirt pocket, he signed my book with a friendly smile and was eager to explain the ins and outs of the short stories. He stayed at the signing after the other authors had left. When his books sold out, he sent his wife, Laura, to their car to retrieve additional copies."

https://bluemusemag.com/2019/12/10/connecting-across-borders-author-sergio-troncoso-emma-nelson/

LargeHearted Boy: Playlist for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Thank you, David Gutowski of LargeHearted Boy. He gave me the opportunity to create an imaginary playlist for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son at this nexus of writing and music. Thirteen songs on Spotify, with my commentary about how they remind me of the characters and situations in my book.

"I listen to music to think and to find inspiration from its emotions, energies, and rhythms. Music is a fount of creativity for me. When I’m deep in a story in my head and I’m trying to work out a character or plot line, or I’m thinking of the many layers of a story, I listen to music. It’s a way of letting go, of immersing myself in something new that is not writing. My favorite music always inspires me to find that solution that previously bedeviled me, or it loosens something stuck in my brain and I often have an aha! moment where I see what I previously did not see. All of this happens when I lose myself in sound."

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2019/11/sergio_troncoso.html

Bookmarked Interview on KZSM with Sergio Troncoso

My KZSM radio interview in San Marcos is now available on MixCloud. Thank you, Priscilla Vance Leder, my radio host on Bookmarked, and Steve Davis who joined me on this interview.

"Author Sergio Troncoso talks about his compelling new short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. These interrelated stories explore the complexities of self and identity through a variety of modes, from the realistic and contemporary to the realm of speculative fiction. Steve Davis, Literary Curator of the Wittliff Collections, joins Priscilla Vance Leder for this thought-provoking discussion."

https://www.mixcloud.com/PLeder/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-interview-with-author-sergio-troncoso-broadcast-oct-29-2019/

Texas Monthly: Reinventing the Canon

Texas Monthly: "Born and raised in El Paso, Sergio Troncoso is a prolific short story writer, novelist, and essayist. In From This Wicked Patch of Dust, Pilar and Cuauhtémoc Martínez are raising their four children in Ysleta, a border town. The novel unspools over four decades, and spans from Ysleta to New York City to Tehran in the aftermath of September 11, as the physical, ideological, and religious borders between the family members threaten to separate them for good."

 https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/latinx-texan-literature/

Must Read Fiction Interview with Sergio Troncoso

In this interview, Erin Popelka of Must Read Fiction speaks with Sergio Troncoso, whose most recent book is A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. Our conversation followed as delightful a range as the stories in this collection: we spoke of questions of home and varied immigrant experiences to stories of his grandmother as she smoked cigarettes and described living through the Mexican Revolution to the challenges he poses to his readers through his writing.

A few delightful quotes from our conversation: "I'm a little bit of a rebel. I like to unmoor the reader."
From his grandfather: "Don't become a journalist. If you tell the truth, people will hate you forever."

Questions for his readers: "Who are you? Are you who you want to be? What do you keep? What do you discard? Why? How are we going to be a we?"

These questions and rebellions and stories make for a wonderful journey, both in this interview and in the short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.

https://youtu.be/4VcKNdwfoPA

C. M. Mayo Interviews Sergio Troncoso

C. M. Mayo: "Sergio Troncoso is a writer and literary activist whom I greatly admire. It so happens that we were born the same year in the same city: El Paso, Texas. And both of us lived our adult lives in cultural environments vastly different from El Paso: I went to Mexico City; Sergio to Harvard, Yale, and many years in New York City. Sergio’s works offer a wise, deeply considered, and highly original perspective on American culture."

 C.M. Mayo: What is the most important piece of advice you would offer to another writer who is just starting out? And, if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty year-old self?

SERGIO TRONCOSO: Read as if your life depended on it. Read critically in the area you are thinking of writing. Don’t be an idiot: seek out and appreciate the help of others who are trying to help you by pointing out your errors, your lapses in creating your literary aesthetic. Get a good night’s sleep: if you do, you’ll be ready to write new work the next day. And if you fail, you won’t destroy yourself because you did. You’ll be ready to sit in your chair the next day.

https://madam-mayo.com/q-a-sergio-troncoso-author-of-a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-on-reading-as-if-your-life-depended-on-it-emily-dickenson-the-digital-revolution-and-the-texas-institute-of-letters

Pan Dulce Podcast with Jessica Powers and Octavio Solis

Cinco Puntos Press's Editorial and Foreign Rights Director Jessica Powers moderates a chat with Sergio Troncoso (author of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son) and Octavio Solis (author of Retablos). The authors talk about their books, growing up in the Lower Valley area of El Paso, and what their Mexican American and fronterizo identities have meant for them as adults.

https://soundcloud.com/user-561863132/pan-dulce-ep2-writers-sergio-troncoso-and-octavio-solis

Deborah Kalb Interview

Deborah Kalb interviews me about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, writing, and El Paso:

"The recent August massacre began with stereotypes and prejudices of who the people in El Paso were. These stereotypes missed the real El Paso, the values of hard work and dedication to family, and the peaceful humility of the largely working-class, immigrant community of El Paso.

"But to break these stereotypes people--especially the white population that has never been to the border--must read about and engage with El Paso (and other immigrant communities) and experience for themselves the pride El Pasoans feel about being hard-working Americans"

http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/10/q-with-sergio-troncoso.html

Texas Observer: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

From the Texas Observer on A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:

"From the start, this book takes place not so much at the border of things as on their edge: the contact zones of life and death, past and present, here and there, old and young. In the characters’ minds, we find ourselves on one side of a divide, perpetually looking back or across. With Troncoso, that endeavor is often as dark as it is funny. The El Paso author’s newest collection depicts contemporary Mexican American life with a characteristic blend of sorrow and humor. It’s his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon."

I am so grateful to the Texas Observer and Daniel Peña.

https://www.texasobserver.org/sergio-troncoso-peculiar-kind-immigrants-son-borderlands/

Colorado Public Radio: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Maeve Conran interviews me about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son on Colorado Public Radio's KGNU. I discuss how reading expands your empathy when you read stories outside your community. I also emphasize why this matters after so much anti-immigrant rhetoric is dividing our country and its many communities.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/sergiotroncoso/episodes/2019-10-14T16_05_55-07_00

Words on a Wire: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

I was recently interviewed by Daniel Chacon for KTEP's Words on a Wire. I talk about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son and the 'map' of the table of contents of the thirteen stories, in which characters appear and reappear within groups to give a different perspective and refracted vision on these characters. I also talk about how I created a whole from these stories, by comparing the book to an album of music with a certain vision and message. I discuss the most important purpose of writing, especially during moments like the Wal-Mart massacre in El Paso, when all writers must counteract the stereotypes outsiders have about our border communities. Empathy should be at the root of our work as writers.

https://www.ktep.org/post/words-wire-sergio-troncoso-2

Literarity Book Shop in El Paso

I was interviewed Robert Holguin of KFOX14 at Literarity Book Shop in El Paso. Thank you, Robert. What a wonderful experience at this independent bookstore, my inaugural reading for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.

“Anybody traveling, crossing these borders, going beyond El Paso and coming back, has to deal with these kinds of questions of where do I belong, how do I belong, what part of El Paso values do I take with me and how do I adapt those values when I’m in a place that’s very foreign or very different from El Paso like Boston or Harvard or Yale," said Troncoso. "And so I think that’s why the book is valid and why the book should matter to people.”

“We need to be helping independent bookstores," Troncoso said. "Independent voices all over this country and independent publishers like Cinco Puntos Press and so Literarity is part of that.”

https://kfoxtv.com/community/built-in-the-borderland/indie-bookstore-works-to-improve-quality-of-life-in-el-paso

Journal of Alta Californa on A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

From The Journal of Alta California on A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:


"Chicano literature began with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when a sizable Latino population was separated from its land and heritage. Sergio Troncoso has written brilliantly of this disruption and its pull. In his new book of stories, he is sharp in 'Rosary on the Border,' where a New Yorker returns to the El Paso–area village of Ysleta for his father’s funeral, and 'New Englander,' in which an intellectual Chicano must fight a redneck"

https://altaonline.com/fiction-thats-not-for-the-faint-of-heart/

Lone Star Literary Life's Review: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Lone Star Literary Life's review of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, by Si Dunn.

"El Paso native Sergio Troncoso’s excellent new short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, takes the reader far, yet not far at all, from the currently troubled Texas-Mexico border...

In A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, Sergio Troncoso tells skillfully nuanced stories from the perspective of a poor immigrants’ son who has found success within the world of America’s elite universities and financial power, yet still feels adrift and alienated and seeks deeper meanings.

Where he finds hope for the future, his and the world’s, is in the simple yet wise words of his now-departed relatives and in memories and lessons ingrained in him at the Texas-Mexico border."

 https://www.lonestarliterary.com/content/lone-star-review-peculiar-kind-immigrants-son

NBC News: Fifteen Great New Books for Hispanic Heritage Month

NBC News: Fifteen Great New Books for Hispanic Heritage Month. Thank you, Rigoberto Gonzalez, for putting A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) on this list!

"These poignant short stories shed a startling light on the middle-class experience of Chicanos in New York. An Ivy League education and job security in a cosmopolitan city far from their youth in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands doesn’t mean the American dream has been realized without further conflict... Sergio Troncoso dispels the myth of assimilation as a safe haven and reminds readers that distance from a working-class upbringing doesn’t absolve a person from the responsibility to one’s community. The wounds of leaving home never truly heal."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/15-great-new-books-latinos-hispanic-heritage-month-n1052451

Kudos from Kirkus: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Hey, Kirkus Reviews chose A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son as one of the "30 most Anticipated Fiction Books for Fall." Thank you, Kirkus! Jeez, I'm with Zadie Smith, Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, Attica Locke, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ann Patchett, and Angie Cruz. I feel dizzy... and grateful.

If you do read my book of linked stories on immigration, please use the table of contents as a guide. The stories are in groups for a reason and relate to each other within their groups. Think of this as a cracked mirror, perhaps, from one angle it may look like a fragment of your face but from another angle you might see a stranger, a monster, even a hero.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/30-most-anticipated-fiction-books-fa/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son/

Interview in Lone Star Literary Life

A new interview in Lone Star Literary Life. Thank you, Michelle Newby Lancaster.

"The family values I learned in Ysleta: work until you are exhausted and get up and do it again the next day; help yourself by being disciplined and honest and good for your word, and then turn around and help others; be proud of your Mexican heritage, but don’t be afraid to change it, to make it better, to morph it into a new “Mexican American” heritage from the border. These are quintessentially the American values of immigrants who have come to the United States from different cultures and different nations."

Lone Star Literary Life: Interview with Sergio Troncoso

CNN Op-Ed: My family's El Paso story is quintessentially American

My family's El Paso story is quintessentially American
By Sergio Troncoso

"I am and always will be the proud son of Mexican immigrants from El Paso. My parents came from Juárez, Chihuahua, to the United States in the 1950's, newlyweds with only a few dollars in their pockets. In the east side neighborhood of Ysleta, they built an adobe house that at first had no electricity and an outhouse in the backyard. Yes, in Texas. They followed other Mexican immigrants who had been coming to the United States for decades. They followed even some Mexicans who were already in the state before Texas was ever Texas. These Tejanos didn't cross the border; the border crossed them.

August 3 will always be one of the saddest days of my life. I love my hometown of El Paso, Texas. Many times in a typical trip home, I have shopped at Cielo Vista Mall and that Walmart where the mass shooting unfolded. This mass murderer from Dallas (Plano, actually) knew nothing about how great this community is and the values practiced by many there."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/opinions/el-paso-mexican-american-family-story-troncoso/index.html

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

I have a new book of linked stories, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, forthcoming from Cinco Puntos Press in October 2019. The stories focus on immigration, Mexican-American diaspora, perspectivism, and time. I will be reading and discussing this new book from El Paso to New York, so please check my website for Appearances in your area. Below are some early blurbs. Thank you for supporting my work. I appreciate it.

"Sergio Troncoso is one of our most brilliant minds in Latina/o Literature. These new stories demonstrate that he is also possessed of a great corazón. This is a world-class collection. Troncoso continues to raise the bar for the rest of us."
---Luis Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels and The Hummingbird's Daughter


"A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son is Troncoso at his absolute finest ... a masterwork bursting with immigrant intimacies, electrifying truths and hard-earned tenderness. This is a book I could not let go of, that took me from El Paso to New England to Mexico and to the labyrinths beyond. In these aching stories Troncoso has perfectly captured the diasporic dilemma of those of us who have had to leave our first worlds  - how that exile both haunts and liberates, heals and injures. An extraordinary performance."
---Junot Díaz, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"Our bodies are legacies that encompass landscapes, borders, ancestors, histories that bind us to the past.  Here are stories lodged in the geography of polarities and the taut tightrope act between."
---Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street


"In his thought-provoking collection of stories, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, Sergio Troncoso introduces us to a wide cast of characters, each unique and particular in his or her own way, and yet ever so universal in terms of the human experience. Troncoso’s stories are timely and relevant; only with knowledge can one beat back the bear of a colonial past."
---Christina Chiu, author of Beauty and Troublemaker and Other Stories

“I love Sergio Troncoso’s new collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. It traces epic journeys, both of body and soul, from places like Ysleta in Far West Texas to sophisticated avenues in Boston and Manhattan. But the best part of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son is the magic of Troncoso’s language, which sings from each page. This book is a triumph, the work of a master writer at the peak of his game.”
---W. K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, A Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Movie

Winners of the 2018 Troncoso Reading Prizes

Thank you Derek Najera, branch manager, and the entire staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library for your work on behalf of the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes. On February 20th, we held the ceremony to present the winners with certificates of achievement and gift cards from Barnes and Noble. I also gave each student a signed copy of one of my books.

This year we held the event at the Pavo Real Recreation Center next door, because the branch library is undergoing renovations, including tripling the size of their parking space, new carpeting, new circulation desk, and even a new paint job for the exterior. These changes are so exciting, and the renovated Troncoso Branch Library will reopen in May of 2019.

The 2018 winners of the Troncoso Reading Prizes are: Leo Rivera and Brianna Moreno (1st place), Marisol Ramirez and Judy Aguirre (2nd place), and Adrian Vizcarra (not in photo) and Daniel Owen (3rd place).

What impressed me about this year's winners was how friendly and outgoing and engaging all the students were. I talked about how important reading was for me, as a kid from Ysleta, and how essential public libraries were to improve my concentration, to apply the good family values I learned from my parents about working hard and pushing myself to get better. The El Paso Public Library was where I learned to satisfy that intellectual hunger for ideas and stories, and I could see that hunger and focus in all of these students. Each of them reminded me of who I was many years ago. I love this community, and I will keep returning to Ysleta to award these prizes every year and to talk to these families about how they can educate themselves and their children to gain a voice, to reach their goals, and to return and help others.

Every year, we award prizes for students who read the most books between September 15-November 15. (This was our regular schedule before the library renovation, and we will probably go back to it in 2019.) The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card.
Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card.
Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card.

All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register for the 2019 prizes, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-858-0905.

Pen Parentis Reading, February 12, 7 PM

I will be reading with Sonja Curry Johnson and Viktoria Peitchev at Pen Parentis in New York City: Tuesday, Feb. 12, 7 PM, The Hideout at Killarney Rose (80 Beaver Street). 

What does it mean to be displaced? How do the children of displaced persons feel about their national identity?

In continued celebration of their Tenth Anniversary of Literary Salons in Lower Manhattan, Pen Parentis presents three authors, who will read on the theme of displacement. Q&A will follow, centering around work-life balance. All authors presented at Pen Parentis are also parents - the series aims to shatter the stereotype of what parents write by presenting the creative diversity of high quality work by professional writers who have kids.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Three-Notable-Authors-Discuss-Displacement-During-Happy-Hour-In-FiDi-20190117