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A Memoir in Essays
by Edgar Gomez
A darkly comic memoir-in-essays about the scam of the American Dream and doing whatever it takes to survive in the Sunshine State—from the award-winning author of High-Risk Homosexual.
In Florida, one of the first things you're taught as a child is that if you're ever chased by a wild alligator, the only way to save yourself is to run away in zigzags. It's a lesson on survival that has guided much of Edgar Gomez's life.
Like the night his mother had a stroke while he and his brother stood frozen at the foot of her bed, afraid she'd be angry if they called for an ambulance they couldn't afford. Gomez escaped into his mind, where he could tell himself nothing was wrong with his family. Zig. Or years later, as a broke college student, he got on his knees to put sandals on tourists' smelly, swollen feet for minimum wage at the Flip Flop Shop. After clocking out, his crew of working-class, queer, Latinx friends changed out of their uniforms in the passenger seats of each other's cars, speeding toward the relief they found at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Zag. From committing a little bankruptcy fraud for the money for veneers to those days he paid his phone bill by giving massages to closeted men on vacation, back when he and his friends would Venmo each other the same emergency twenty dollars over and over. Zig. Zag. Gomez survived this way as long as his legs would carry him.
Alligator Tears is a fiercely defiant memoir-in-essays charting Gomez's quest to claw his family out of poverty by any means necessary and exposing the archetype of the humble poor person for what it is: a scam that insists we remain quiet and servile while we wait for a prize that will always be out of reach. For those chasing the American Dream and those jaded by it, Gomez's unforgettable story is a testament to finding love, purpose, and community on your own terms, smiling with all your fake teeth.
"Triumphant ... dazzling ... Even as he offers a pitiless, self-aware view of life on the margins, Gomez remains funny, candid, and unfailingly stylish. This delivers a welcome jolt to the coming-of-age memoir formula." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Meticulously evoked and darkly comic ... Heartening ... This portrait of the artist as a young flip-flop salesman will inspire, amuse, and empower its audience." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Gomez is sweet and conversational, like a friend readers have known for life: nostalgic, playful, and caring ... It is beautiful to get to know the life of this artist, whose endearing world will remain with readers long after they've finished the book." —Booklist
"Alligator Tears is gorgeous, poignant, and raw, chock-full of hope and want and irrepressible, aching beauty. This is the kind of Florida writing that I love most: a daring, swampy slick of a collection where the humidity hangs like a hug. Edgar Gomez is a tremendous talent. I'll read anything he writes." —Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth
"No one writes about the terrors of late-stage capitalism with such humor, candor, and aplomb. In every sentence, Gomez elucidates the unnecessary horrors of suffering in the American context. To our benefit (and relief), he accomplishes this feat with the wonder of a child and the wit of a satirist. Affecting and inspiring, Alligator Tears is more proof that Gomez is a writer who deserves our attention." —Alejandro Varela, author of National Book Award finalist The Town of Babylon
"Edgar Gomez is a young writer of deep talent and enormous grace. Alligator Tears speaks for the lost tribes of 'other,' those who serve our food, do our taxes, and mind our children. They walk the earth among us, invisible, without a voice. I am so glad that Edgar Gomez has given them one." —James McBride, New York Times bestselling author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
This information about Alligator Tears was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edgar Gomez (he/they) is the author of High-Risk Homosexual, which received an American Book Award, a Stonewall Israel-Fishman Honor Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Born and raised in Florida, Gomez has written for the Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers, LitHub, New York Magazine, and beyond. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Black Mountain Institute. Gomez lives in New York and Puerto Rico.
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