“I’m going home to the other side.” That’s a strange statement, but you hear it all the time at the Kentucky Club. It’s a place of rich history and good drinks and cold beer and a long polished mahogany bar. It welcomes Spanish and English, Mexicans and gringos, poor and rich, gay and straight, drug addicts and drunks, laughter and sadness, and even despair. Sáenz knows that the Kentucky Club, like special watering holes in all cities, is the contrary to borders. His characters walk by, they might go in for a drink or to score, or they might just stay there for a while and let their story be told. Written by Erica Olsen, founder and President of a business development firm that helps entrepreneurial-minded businesses plan for a successful future. It’s a touchstone for each of Sáenz’s stories. Take, for instance, the Kentucky Club on Avenida Juárez two blocks south of the Rio Grande. Erica Avrami, Heritage Data and the Next Generation. This weeks story is from PEN/Faulkner winner Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, published by Cinco Puntos Press. Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s stories reveal how all borders–real, imagined, sexual, human, the line between dark and light, addict and straight–entangle those who live on either side. Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 8. The Bookslinger app has been updated with a new story!
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