Understanding Francisco Goldman

Ariana E. Vigil

Description

The first book-length study of a writer whose work has been shaped by his unique heritage

Award-winning writer and journalist Francisco Goldman is the author of novels and works of nonfiction and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine. His awards include the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the T. R. Fyvel Book Award, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born to a Guatemalan mother and Jewish American father, Goldman's heritage has shaped his unique perspective and has had a significant influence on his literary themes.

In Understanding Francisco Goldman, the first book-length study of Goldman's life and work, Ariana E. Vigil begins with a biographical chapter drawn largely from Goldman's essays and interviews. Her analytical chapters, one for each of Goldman's four novels and two works of nonfiction, offer biographical, historical, political, and literary context for each work while exploring major themes.

Vigil examines the influence literary and political history have had in the development of Goldman's characters and themes, as well as his use of multiple literary genres and the role of humor in his work. She underscores how major themes in Goldman's work—migration, political violence, love, and loss—are explored across nations and time periods and how they remain significant today.

In Understanding Francisco Goldman, Vigil draws connections between the writer's life and work and demonstrates the appreciation he deserves for his influence, diversity, and breadth. Through his thoughtful, intellectual, transnational writing, Goldman expands the definition of what it means to be American.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Jacobo
• Reference
• Foray
• Captivating (book)
• Francisco Goldman
• Fresa
• Historical Clarification Commission
• Vargas Llosa
• Kirkpatrick Doctrine
• Alliance for Progress
• Political correctness
• Activism
• Benito Cereno
• Rick Moody
• Alliance pour le Progrès
• Joan Didion
• Wallace Shawn
• Contras
• Goldman
• Hippie
• Daniel Ortega
• Mario Vargas Llosa

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611179217
• Langue: English

Extrait

UNDERSTANDING FRANCISCO GOLDMAN
UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
Matthew J. Bruccoli, Founding Editor
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
UNDERSTANDING
FRANCISCO GOLDMAN
Ariana E. Vigil

The University of South Carolina Press
2018 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/ .
ISBN 978-1-61117-920-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-61117-921-7 (ebook)
Front cover photograph: Ulf Anderson
http://ulfanderson.photoshelter.com
CONTENTS
Series Editor s Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Understanding Francisco Goldman
Chapter 2 Searching for Self and Confronting Impunity in The Long Night of White Chickens
Chapter 3 Movement and Memory in The Ordinary Seaman
Chapter 4 A View of History from the Center: The Divine Husband
Chapter 5 Confronting the Legacy of Violence in The Art of Political Murder
Chapter 6 Love, Loss, and Literature: Say Her Name
Chapter 7 Around Mexico: The Interior Circuit
Conclusion: Goldman in the Global South
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR S PREFACE
The Understanding Contemporary American Literature series was founded by the estimable Matthew J. Bruccoli (1931-2008), who envisioned these volumes as guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers, a legacy that will continue as new volumes are developed to fill in gaps among the nearly one hundred series volumes published to date and to embrace a host of new writers only now making their marks on our literature.
As Professor Bruccoli explained in his preface to the volumes he edited, because much influential contemporary literature makes special demands, the word understanding in the titles was chosen deliberately. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works; that is, of what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed. Aimed at fostering this understanding of good literature and good writers, the criticism and analysis in the series provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers-explicating their material, language, structures, themes, and perspectives-and facilitate a more profitable experience of the works under discussion.
In the twenty-first century Professor Bruccoli s prescience gives us an avenue to publish expert critiques of significant contemporary American writing. The series continues to map the literary landscape and to provide both instruction and enjoyment. Future volumes will seek to introduce new voices alongside canonized favorites, to chronicle the changing literature of our times, and to remain, as Professor Bruccoli conceived, contemporary in the best sense of the word.
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first thanks go to Francisco Goldman, whose prose I have long admired. His novels offer engrossing narratives that touch on some of the most important issues of our time while the characters he creates are memorable and human. His most recent nonfiction writings, particularly those stemming from and dealing with Mexico, offer the kind of insider s perspective that so many of us living in the United States but with deep ties to Latin America find resonant. And, as a binational writer, he has a voice and perspective that make space for those of us, like myself, who are children of several diasporas. Thank you to Jennifer Ho for alerting me to the opportunity to write this book and to Linda Wagner-Martin and Jim Denton for their interest in this project and assistance with bringing the manuscript to print. Thanks to Jennifer Harford Vargas for reading drafts of several chapters and offering astute feedback and to Jes Boon for looking into some of the references in The Divine Husband and offering her opinion on seventeenth-century Spanish Catholicism. A second thank-you to Jennifer Ho, a longtime friend, mentor, and colleague, for always being willing to share ideas, listen to problems, and offer advice on any subject personal, political, or academic. Thank you Mario Morales for reintroducing me to D.F., for your warmth, humor, and hospitality, and Alejandra M rquez for your shared love of the city and for reading and discussing the last chapters of the manuscript. Research support was provided by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Finally, thank you to my family, especially my father, David Vigil, who always offers support and sincere engagement with my work.
CHAPTER 1
Understanding Francisco Goldman
Within Latina/o communities in the United States, it is not uncommon to hear criticisms of those who refer to the United States as America. America, we should keep in mind, is not synonymous with the United States of America but rather includes two continents and dozens of countries. And yet, even cognizant of this dual reference of the word America, Francisco Goldman is a truly American writer. Goldman s work spans countries, continents, languages, and time periods. He has made use of a wide variety of genres; some, such as the novel, are widely familiar to U.S. audiences, while others, like the cr nica (chronicle), are more well known within a Latin American context. While moving seamlessly between different styles and locations, his writing remains grounded in stories of the human condition-including the love, political intrigue, search for belonging, and quest for justice-that have spurred centuries of literature.
Goldman s expansive literary career can be linked to his binational childhood. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1954, the son of a Catholic Guatemalan mother and Jewish American father. His mother is mestiza , a term that denotes a racial or ethnic mix between those indigenous to the Western Hemisphere and their European conquerors. The same idea is expressed by the word ladino in Guatemala, and that term is also used to distinguish between this population and indigenous Guatemalans, particularly those who wear traditional traje (clothing) and speak an indigenous language, and who make up 60 percent of that country s population. According to the author, his family s background is similar to that of Rogerio Graetz, the protagonist of his first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens . Like Goldman, Graetz is the son of a working-class Jewish American father from Boston and a middle-class mother from Guatemala. However, Goldman has described his parents personalities as being distinct from their fictional counterparts. Ira, the father in the novel, is warm and doting; he annually excuses his son from school to attend football games at Harvard. In contrast Goldman has explained that his father, who worked as a chemical engineer in a factory that made false teeth, was pretty violent, adding that, in contrast to how many may think of Jewish men, he was rough. 1 Their domestic life was chaotic, his parents relationship was tumultuous, and Goldman has referred to himself as a survivor of his home and school.
Within this environment Goldman did not excel academically, although he was drawn to writing, often producing short stories for other students. Some of these stories wound up in the high school literary magazine; meanwhile teachers skeptical of his talent accused him of plagiarism. After high school Goldman attended the private Hobart College in Geneva, New York, but transferred to the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1977 with a B.A. After university he moved to New York City, and then, hoping to produce stories to gain entry into M.F.A. programs, he moved to his uncle s house in Guatemala City in 1979, placing himself squarely within one of the most violent periods of that country s history. He explained: I was in my twenties, and the two parts of the world I am from-the US and Central America-were essentially at war with each other. I wasn t going to miss that. 2 He sold several stories to Esquire , and the acquiring editor, Rust Hills, encouraged him to continue his journalistic work, which he did.
In the nearly forty years since he began his career as a journalist and novelist, Goldman has established himself as a unique and important voice in contemporary U.S. literature. His fiction and nonfiction works have earned prizes, and he was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1998. He has attracted an international readership and has been translated into fifteen languages. He currently splits his time between Mexico City and the United States. At Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, he holds the position of Allan K. Smith Professor of English Language and Literature, where he teaches courses in fiction writing and literature.
Goldman s knowledge of Central America and his interest in the region facilitated a significant career as a journalist. He reported on and from Central America in venues with a U.S. audience, allowing U.S. residents to better understand the conflicts that plagued the region during the 1980s and 1990s and the U.S. roles in these conflicts. In a February 1990 report on Nicaragua s national election, Goldman took the United States to task for their newfound and uneven interest in democracy in Central America. Did men like Reagan and Bush and [assistant secretary of state] Abrams care whether Nicaragua had free and fair elections during the long and brutal rule of General Anastasio Somoza Debayle? 3 Goldman s rhetorical question does not necessitate a full response, but he did explain, for those less aware of the recent history of the country, that in fact the United States expressed interest in free and fair electi