In a world without Paul Wellstone, Gilb is that much more of a treasure. Having written two acclaimed story collections and a novel, he is back with a potent series of thirty-six essays, Gritos. A quote from one, a brief tribute titled Steinbeck, tells you where he’s coming from: “The literary world is a powerful suit-and-tie business, and the well-dressed stories that editors look for are too much by writers whose game is played as professionally as Harvard MBAs, whose marketing goals are not meant to cause a reader to step outside the privileged cubicle to see who’s sweeping the floor in the hours after they’ve gone home.” Forceful, often funny, and always one hundred percent BS-free, Gilb is a construction worker-turned-university professor who stands up for the millions among us who know “hard work” all too well, but who (unlike our commander in chief) do not whine about it. He reads as part of the Chicano & Latino Writers Festival.
Dayton’s Bluff Branch/Metropolitan State University Library, Ecolab Room, 645 E. 7th St., St. Paul; 651-222-3242; http://www.thefriends.org/calendar.htm
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