Benjamin Alire Sáenz was born in 1954 in Old Picacho, a small
farming village outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-two miles
north of the U.S. / Mexico border. He was the fourth of seven
children and was brought up in a traditional Mexican-American
Catholic family. He entered the seminary in 1972, a decision that
was as much political as it was religious. After concluding his
theological studies at the University of Louvain, he was ordained a
Catholic priest. Three and a half years later, he left the
priesthood.
At the age of 30, he entered the University of Texas at El Paso. He
later received a fellowship at the University of Iowa. In 1988, he
received a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in poetry from Stanford
University. In 1993, he returned to the border to teach in the
bilingual MFA program at UTEP.
Sáenz is the author of a previous book of poetry, Calendar of Dust,
which won an American Book Award. Cinco Puntos published two of his
other books of poetry called Elegies in Blue and the now out of
print, Dark and Perfect Angels. His most recent book of poetry, The
Book of What Remains, was published by Copper Canyon Press in
2010.
He is the author of numerous novels, books for children and young
adults as well as a previous collection of short stories. His award
winning young adult novels are Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood, He
Forgot to Say Goodbye, and Last Night I Sang to the Monster. His
adult novels include Carry Me Like Water, The House of Forgetting,
In Perfect Light, and Names on a Map.
"Sáenz's moving collection of short stories hinges on the
intergenerational clientele of the titular borderland watering hole
just south of the U.S.-Mexican divide on Avenida Juárez
there's
much to enjoy in these gritty, heartfelt stories. Publishers
Weekly
"Seven excellent stories
[by] a versatile writer
Sàenz writes
prose that is tender, occasionally fierce, and always engaging.
Read every word of his stories lest you miss some clever twist,
some subtle irony, some gentle nuance of poetic imagery that he has
labored to create." Booklist
"Seven stunningly evocative short stories
a haunting tableau of
characters wrestling with the boons and burdens of existence
Saenz, with these masterfully hewn stories, presents this
hardscrabble yet tenacious city as beautiful in its contradictions,
disquieting in its ambiguities, and heartbreaking in its
quotidianness. Filtered through this book are the lives of its
singular people: doomed, broken, resourceful, and, above all else,
faithfulto the city and to the parts they play in its intricate
dimensions." — Texas Books in Review
"Though the prolific Benjamin Alire Sáenz has been writing books in
every genre for the past two decades, Everything Begins and Ends at
the Kentucky Club is only his second short-story collection. But
the wait was definitely worth it
[The story "He Has Gone to Be
with the Women"] is nothing short of a masterpiece
In one story,
a school counselor says the following about his troubled charges:
"They came to me with a thirst in their eyes, a thirst, such a
thirst and I knew that I could never give them the rain they
deserved, the rain they so desperately needed." That might as well
be The Kentucky Club speaking, since every protagonist in this
heartbreaking collection of stories finds his way to a confession
stool at the bar. They find no solutions to their ills, just a
sensitive ear that has heard it all before but is willing to listen
once again." Rigoberto González, former president of the
executive board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle,
special to the El Paso Times
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