Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

 Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories by Cecilia Brainard





ACAPULCO AT SUNSET AND OTHER STORIES

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

PALH 2020, 16- pages, softcover ISBN 987-1-953716-07-1, $14.95

First published by Anvil in 1995, all rights belong to the author





This 2020 US Edition of Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's collection of short fiction, ACAPULCO AT SUNSET AND OTHER STORIES, gathers seventeen enchanting stories grouped into four categories: Long Ago Tales, Stories from the '60s and '70s, Stories from the '90s, and American Tales. In this book, Brainard, a Philippine American author, continues her exploration of her Filipino and Filipino-American immigrant experiences. The collection includes some of her best short stories.This anthology of stories, first published in 1995 in the Philippines, is now presented to an audience familiar with Brainard's subsequent literary work -- the novels she wrote (WHEN THE RAINBOW GODDESS WEPT, MAGDALENA, THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW), the books she edited, including the young adult coming-of-age anthologies GROWING UP FILIPINO: STORIE FOR YOUNG ADULTS and the follow up GROWING UP FILIPINO; and more.

Brainard is the author and editor of over twenty books of fiction and nonfiction. She is the recipient of several awards including a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Brody Arts Fund Award, and an Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city of Cebu, Philippines. Her work is widely anthologized and has been translated into Finnish and Turkish. Her literary endeavors are considered significant contributions to Filipino, Philippine-American, as well as Asian American literature.

“The stories of Cecilia Manguerra Brainard tell of voyages the heart could have taken, of places haunted by old memories like ghosts lingering under an ancient mango tree, of times seemingly irretrievable but always there at the farthest end of the thread of remembering.” ~ Marjorie M. Evasco, 
Poet

“Brainard enriches the conventional understanding of exile by applying the concept to Filipino experience in the Philippines. She is thereby able to show the cultural and social issues that a Filipino/a faces while in exile are universal Filipino experiences.” ~ Les Adler for Pilipinas

 "In Brainard's stories, Acapulco and Intramuros are the same, and at the same time, completely different places. Dead characters and live characters talk to each other nonchalantly. A young poor boy falls in love with an older rich woman, and by loving her, kills her. Filipinos find their identity in, of course, San Francisco, but not so ordinarily, in Alaska. The green card - actually blue - spells the difference between authenticity and an authentic life, between dreaming and the American dream."In Brainard's stories, the mind does wondrous things: aside from creating an Evil-Thing that makes one do good things, for instance, it may recreate good people that spell the difference between good and evil. It may make characters live in worlds they themselves create, distinct from - often destructive of - the world that has created them. A young girl, for instance, may live for the handsome object of her adolescent fantasies, then so suddenly recognize these fantasies as mere "silly daydreams." A very old woman, saving herself for her one and only love, finally surrenders her virtue - and her life - on her death bed, of course to her one and only, now long dead, love," ~ Isagani R. Cruz for Starweek


Excerpt

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2013/06/manila-without-verna-short-story-by.html


Book Reviews

Review by Les Adler for Pilipinas, Michigan State University, No. 26, Spring 1996

Review by Isagani R. Cruz for Starweek, Philippine Star, October 29, 1995

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