---

"The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acu�a"

(Reviewed by Judi Clark OCT 4, 1998)

Mickey Acu�a is hiding out at a YMCA in El Paso Texas while he waits for a much needed check but hints at some trouble that could happen if the money doesn't arrive soon. Mickey inadvertently becomes the center of the Y community as he tells his tale of women, draws analogies to the "wild west" (book he is reading) and is on an unbelievable winning streak. But is what he say true? Or Is Mickey one more quirky eccentric with nowhere else to go?

Gilb's style of writing makes an understatement of the daily life (mail, ping-pong games) for the unemployables and the down-on-the-lucks. This book is humorous, yet a very serious contribution to literature.

• Amazon readers' rating: from 9 reviews

---

(back to top)

---

Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

• Winners on the Pass Line (1985)
• The Magic of Blood (1993)
• The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña (1995)
• Woodcuts of Women: Stories (2001)
• The Flowers (2008)
• Before the End, After the Beginning (November 2011)

Nonfiction:

• Gritos: Essays (2003)

Other:

• Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas-Mexican Literature (2006)

 

(back to top)

---

Book Marks:

• The official website for Dagoberto Gilb
• Northeast Direct by Dagoberto Gilb
• Collected Stories interview on Woodcuts of Women
• MostlyFiction.com review of Before the End, After the Beginning

 

(back to top)

---

About the Author:

Dagoberto Gilb fits in the a small but growing category of Latino writers that write primarily in English. In 1992 he won a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship; in 1993 he received the Whiting Writer's Award; and in 1995 he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. The Magic of Blood won the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award and The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña was named "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times Book Review.  In the mid-1970s, he was a construction worker, and then for twelve years a journeyman high-rise carpenter. He now teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and has been a visiting writer at the universities of Texas, Arizona, and Wyoming. He is also a contributor to National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program.