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Before the End, After the Beginning
Before the End, After the Beginning is a personal and honest collection of ten exquisite stories from Dagoberto Gilb. The pieces come in the wake of a stroke Gilb suffered at his home in Austin, Texas, in 2009, and a majority of the stories were written over many months of recovery. The result is a powerful and triumphant collection that tackles common themes of mortality and identity and describes the American experience in a raw, authentic vernacular unique to Gilb.
These ten stories take readers throughout the American West and Southwest, from Los Angeles and Albuquerque to El Paso and Austin. Gilb covers territory familiar to some of his earlier work—a mother and son’s relationship in Southern California in the story ‘Uncle Rock� or a character looking to shed his mixed up past in ‘The Last Time I Saw Junior’—while dealing with themes of mortality and limitation that have arisen during his own illness. Confronting issues of masculinity, sexuality, and mortality, Gilb has recovered and produced what may be his most extraordinary achievement to date.
These ten stories take readers throughout the American West and Southwest, from Los Angeles and Albuquerque to El Paso and Austin. Gilb covers territory familiar to some of his earlier work—a mother and son’s relationship in Southern California in the story ‘Uncle Rock� or a character looking to shed his mixed up past in ‘The Last Time I Saw Junior’—while dealing with themes of mortality and limitation that have arisen during his own illness. Confronting issues of masculinity, sexuality, and mortality, Gilb has recovered and produced what may be his most extraordinary achievement to date.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
192 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2011
5 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
About the author
Dagoberto Gilb
34Ìýbooks40ÌýfollowersDagoberto Gilb was born in the city of Los Angeles, his mother a Mexican who crossed the border illegally, and his father a Spanish-speaking Anglo raised in East Los Angeles. They divorced before he began kindergarten. He attended several junior colleges until he transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied philosophy and religion and graduated with both bachelor'
s and master's degrees. After that, he began his life as a construction worker, migrating back and forth from Los Angeles and El Paso. A father, he eventually joined the union in Los Angeles; a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, he became a class-A journeyman carpenter, and his employment for the next twelve years was on high-rise buildings.
s and master's degrees. After that, he began his life as a construction worker, migrating back and forth from Los Angeles and El Paso. A father, he eventually joined the union in Los Angeles; a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, he became a class-A journeyman carpenter, and his employment for the next twelve years was on high-rise buildings.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 29, 2011
A lesser writer might have stuck with The Middle, but make no mistake, in Before the End, After the Beginning Dagoberto Gilb provides a cast of characters--not so much macho this time around (see: ), but in need of a damn hug--caught in the purgatory of their own lives.
Purgatory, then? No. No, still too specific. And it's perhaps the inability of Gilb's characters to pin down, to put their fingers on, just what the hell is wrong with...well, everything, that seems to be the point.
But! With the holidays approaching, and this book being the perfect size to stuff down a stocking, let me approach each of these stories as a potentially perfect gift for the down-and-out vato in your life:
"please thank you" - The most autobiographical of the bunch, Gilb completed this short story in a hospital bed, after having suffered a stroke, and with feeling in only one arm. The story is about a man in a similar (see: exact) disposition, and so is written with minimal punctuation and intentionally clunky syntax. So if you know anyone bitching about their poor health this season, politely suggest they write it down and tell someone who cares (like Harpers, for example, where this story first appeared).
"The Last Time I Saw Junior" - Remember that time you finally got your shit together, found some semblance of purpose in your life, and actually started feeling good about yourself, when suddenly some dick from your past rang you up and the next thing you know you're back where you started, down and out, cruising your old haunting grounds, feeling like the worst human being in the world? Well, this story is for that dick.
"Willows Village" - For the smoking hot, slightly older relative in your life (an Aunt, preferably) that had you, at some point, re-checking your family tree for evidence of blood relations, as opposed to the other, naughtier kind. Oh, and if you ever seen said relative naked...even better.
"His Birthday" - This story is a double-whammy. Perfect for the child in your life, who will share the young boy's happiness at the end, as he marvels at the beauty of his brand new birthday gift; and for you, the older/wiser reader, who gets to realize that, actually, the kid's probably fucked.
"Uncle Rock" - For The New Yorker subscriber on your list, so they can take one look at the title and tell you, Oh actually I read this in The New Yorker. Because I get The New Yorker. You know, The New Yorker?
"Cheap" - This story pretty much covers the gamut: insecure musicians; irritating church-goers; deep-seeded racists; illegal workers; bank tellers; burrito lovers; betrayers; and of course really cheap people who would sell their own mother down the river if it meant saving a buck. So if you know any of those, this is your story. If you know all of those, this is most definitely your story because your Dagoberto Gilb, guey!
"Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch" - You know those people who can never make it anywhere on time because they always seem to stop for strange women sitting outside gas stations, asking for a ride to some part of town so they can cash a check or something, and it's only a matter of time before these same people realize they've been driving forever and no one owes this crazy bruja anything and she actually has no idea what the hell she's talking about? Well, this story is not for them. Because those people suck. And they should get nothing.
"Blessing" - Like a back-handed compliment, this story presents a macho-man home wrecker who, like many of Gilb's characters, is going to be the last to know he's a lot of things...blessed being not one of them. So I guess, then, for the backhand complimenters? Yeah, let's see who they sympathize with. And then let's mention how great they look in sweatpants.
"To Document" - Ever felt like a piece of meat? Someone else's "life experience"? The wild oats all them nice, suburban kids leave their pretty homes to sew? Or have you ever been stoned so paranoid that not only do you feel your next door neighbor is a narc, but flash forward twenty years and you're at an airport and you swear to god there's that same neighbor, still giving you the stink eye!? Well that's some good premo shit, muchacho, and...wait, what were we talking about?
"Hacia Teotitlan" - which actually refers to a small village in Central Mexico where, rumor has it, not one of its inhabitants has ever read the final story in a collection, and yet still has the audacity to not only write a review on the entire book but post it on popular websites as if they know what they're talking about. The sneaky, sneaky bitches!
Purgatory, then? No. No, still too specific. And it's perhaps the inability of Gilb's characters to pin down, to put their fingers on, just what the hell is wrong with...well, everything, that seems to be the point.
But! With the holidays approaching, and this book being the perfect size to stuff down a stocking, let me approach each of these stories as a potentially perfect gift for the down-and-out vato in your life:
"please thank you" - The most autobiographical of the bunch, Gilb completed this short story in a hospital bed, after having suffered a stroke, and with feeling in only one arm. The story is about a man in a similar (see: exact) disposition, and so is written with minimal punctuation and intentionally clunky syntax. So if you know anyone bitching about their poor health this season, politely suggest they write it down and tell someone who cares (like Harpers, for example, where this story first appeared).
"The Last Time I Saw Junior" - Remember that time you finally got your shit together, found some semblance of purpose in your life, and actually started feeling good about yourself, when suddenly some dick from your past rang you up and the next thing you know you're back where you started, down and out, cruising your old haunting grounds, feeling like the worst human being in the world? Well, this story is for that dick.
"Willows Village" - For the smoking hot, slightly older relative in your life (an Aunt, preferably) that had you, at some point, re-checking your family tree for evidence of blood relations, as opposed to the other, naughtier kind. Oh, and if you ever seen said relative naked...even better.
"His Birthday" - This story is a double-whammy. Perfect for the child in your life, who will share the young boy's happiness at the end, as he marvels at the beauty of his brand new birthday gift; and for you, the older/wiser reader, who gets to realize that, actually, the kid's probably fucked.
"Uncle Rock" - For The New Yorker subscriber on your list, so they can take one look at the title and tell you, Oh actually I read this in The New Yorker. Because I get The New Yorker. You know, The New Yorker?
"Cheap" - This story pretty much covers the gamut: insecure musicians; irritating church-goers; deep-seeded racists; illegal workers; bank tellers; burrito lovers; betrayers; and of course really cheap people who would sell their own mother down the river if it meant saving a buck. So if you know any of those, this is your story. If you know all of those, this is most definitely your story because your Dagoberto Gilb, guey!
"Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch" - You know those people who can never make it anywhere on time because they always seem to stop for strange women sitting outside gas stations, asking for a ride to some part of town so they can cash a check or something, and it's only a matter of time before these same people realize they've been driving forever and no one owes this crazy bruja anything and she actually has no idea what the hell she's talking about? Well, this story is not for them. Because those people suck. And they should get nothing.
"Blessing" - Like a back-handed compliment, this story presents a macho-man home wrecker who, like many of Gilb's characters, is going to be the last to know he's a lot of things...blessed being not one of them. So I guess, then, for the backhand complimenters? Yeah, let's see who they sympathize with. And then let's mention how great they look in sweatpants.
"To Document" - Ever felt like a piece of meat? Someone else's "life experience"? The wild oats all them nice, suburban kids leave their pretty homes to sew? Or have you ever been stoned so paranoid that not only do you feel your next door neighbor is a narc, but flash forward twenty years and you're at an airport and you swear to god there's that same neighbor, still giving you the stink eye!? Well that's some good premo shit, muchacho, and...wait, what were we talking about?
"Hacia Teotitlan" - which actually refers to a small village in Central Mexico where, rumor has it, not one of its inhabitants has ever read the final story in a collection, and yet still has the audacity to not only write a review on the entire book but post it on popular websites as if they know what they're talking about. The sneaky, sneaky bitches!
August 28, 2017
Dagoberto Gilb's prose is hard and soft, rapid-fire and then gentle as an unfolding flower, and always with a pace that's just right, whether stuck in traffic on the way to a toy store in Glendale or doing circuits of the streets of Oaxaca. The stories are short - indeed the book is a fast read - but you know its production has been hard labour for Gilb, who wrote it all post-stroke. In the beginning, the narrator is writing with his right side paralysed; in the end, he is tremulous, still not quite right, his awareness lagging behind decisions he's already made. But the life signs are strong and you just know he's already almost back in the saddle.
November 1, 2011
Before the End, After the Beginning is a collection of ten short stories. A couple of the stories in the book have appeared in other places–I read “Uncle Rock� over a year ago in The New Yorker–but most of this book is comprised of new material. Though not much has changed in terms of his style–Gilb is a gifted storyteller whose protagonists are usually male–this collection does seem a lot more introspective compared to his other works that I’ve read.
Whether the characters in these stories are exploring politics or racism, the bounds of friendship or the roots of one’s culture, all of them are experiencing a profound period of transition in their lives. There is a distinctly Southwestern feel to the stories, and though not all of them are set along the U.S.-Mexico border, the concept of navigating borders–be they physical or figurative–presents a recurring theme. The situations in many of these stories are not easy, and some of the protagonists are downright self-contradictory, but Gilb has written them with compassion and grace. This is a collection that deserves conversation...
Read full review .
Whether the characters in these stories are exploring politics or racism, the bounds of friendship or the roots of one’s culture, all of them are experiencing a profound period of transition in their lives. There is a distinctly Southwestern feel to the stories, and though not all of them are set along the U.S.-Mexico border, the concept of navigating borders–be they physical or figurative–presents a recurring theme. The situations in many of these stories are not easy, and some of the protagonists are downright self-contradictory, but Gilb has written them with compassion and grace. This is a collection that deserves conversation...
Read full review .
Want to read
October 28, 2011I loved his novel . Really looking forward to reading this one.
February 11, 2020
Exceptional stories that really capture the essence of Texican life. The stories are not generally exciting from an action standpoint, but in terms of revealing the inner lives of rich characters, they're brilliant. I look forward to reading more.
Read
June 19, 2019This was the first book Gilb published after his stroke and his recount of his hospitalization and recovery was personal and a heartfelt read.
January 22, 2022
Great short storied! Each character a world of it's own, captured in a moment in time.
March 19, 2012
Stroke of insight: A review of Before the End, After the Beginning
REVIEW - From the March 19, 2012 issue of High Country News
By Jenny Shank
Before the End, After the Beginning
Dagoberto Gilb
194 pages, hardcover: $24.
Grove Press, 2011.
Before the End, After the Beginning, Dagoberto Gilb's remarkable new fiction collection, begins with an arresting story written in lowercase letters, titled "please, thank you." The reason becomes clear when a nurse reminds the narrator that he's suffered a stroke, much as Gilb himself did in 2009, impairing the right side of his body and making capital letters difficult to type. In Gilb's characteristically natural-sounding and yet eloquent voice, the narrator describes the disorienting and infantilizing experience of waking up in a hospital, having lost control of his body and life:
"i am weak, and everyone is bigger, stronger, tougher than me. they take blood or pull my body around. ... what does it matter what i think or feel? nobody sees this work they do, and i am just meat, a carcass. if i kick them with the one leg that can, will i be at least more wild tasting meat?"
Many of the stories in this thought-provoking collection feature a man who has lost status in life, either physically or financially. In "Willows Village," Guillermo, who goes by Billy because he "didn't want to sound like (he) just crossed," is a married father who leaves El Paso to stay with his fetching aunt Maggy in Santa Ana, Calif., while he looks for work. Like several other characters in the collection, Maggy, a Mexican-American, has married a rich white man who is usually away on business. She and her equally attractive friend do little but sit around the house drinking wine in their bikinis, spending so freely that at one point, when Maggy opens her purse, "it explode(s) money like a jack-in-the-box." The combination of flaunted cash, booze and flirtation leads Billy toward perdition. Money likewise combines with a subtle exploration of racial tension to ignite one of the strongest stories in the collection, "Cheap."
In Before the End, as in Gilb's other award-winning books, he captures the lives of the kind of people who are seldom depicted in fiction, Southwesterners who work with their hands and worry about whether the police will pull them over because of their appearance, people who agonize over how far each paycheck will stretch. Over and over again, mistakes or misfortune knock them down. And yet they carry on with dignity, facing an always-challenging world with wry and hard-won honesty.
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November 26, 2011
This was my first time reading Gilb, and I really enjoyed the 10 short stories in the book. He captures Texas and the Southwest well. I can't comment on whether he captures the Latino experience in Texas, but he certainly does portray a lot of what I know about it. I particularly related to the first story, also the most personal in the book after Gilb's 2009 stroke, please, thank you written from the point of view of a stroke patient in the hospital. The patient goes through confusion, impatience with the staff, and during the story his thought patterns change and improve as he recovers. It really took me back to the fluorescent lights and confusion of being in the hospital. I kept thinking that each story would end with some tragic event, but Gilb is more subtle than that, like in The Last Time I Saw Junior, about the changes in life and a feeling of belonging or lack thereof. They leave you asking questions and contemplating the characters. My only complaint is that his female characters are two-dimensional; they are either sexy young things or grandmothers (or sometimes, disturbingly, a combination-- as in Aunt Maggy in Willows Village). I thought that the ladies were not very relatable; the stories focused more on men's feelings about them-- sexy, sisterly, grandmotherly. Gilb's fiction is complex and deep, but definitely comes from a macho place.
I received a free copy of this this book from Netgalley. My views and opinions are my own.
I received a free copy of this this book from Netgalley. My views and opinions are my own.
November 28, 2015
The first Dagoberto Gilb book I read was The Magic Of Blood, one of those rare collections of short stories in which each story is great. These stories are OK but not quite as strong as the The Magic of Blood, or maybe my taste has changed. I'm not sure what it is. I would like to give this book top billing because Gilb came to our advanced fiction writing class at Boise State University one day in the 90s and visited with us and I was impressed with him as a person; quiet, intelligent, and an astute observer of humanity. He is unique in that as a writer for many years he followed a different path outside the educational institutions where most writers thrive, and instead made a living working in construction. I wish him well and my autographed copy of The Magic of Blood continues to be one of my most cherished possessions.
December 27, 2011
you can see dagoberto reflect his bad health (a bad stroke) from story one to story ten, he's in bad shape, he gets better, he looks to make reconnections, maybe love, maybe a stable family, a job, find somewhere not to get pulled over by the brownshirts and asked for his papers (though his antecedents have lived in what is usa for about 500 years, about 300 years longer than the rednecks with guns), then ultimately, back to mexico, to what? die? get better? just chill with coco y limon y chili? but no, he does none of those, but rather in classic gilb style he moves on, to what? something better? one hopes, but experiences teach us it is to a place that is NOT better, but worse. Gilb's voice is soft, hopeful, brutal and not fair. a wonderful WELCOME BACK to dagaberto gilb!
January 15, 2015
This collection of ten short stories runs from great writing and topics to a couple of stories which weren't so great: Willows Village is one of them. His characterization of the women in that story seems stereotypical and flat.
My favorites: Please, Thank you; Uncle Rock, Cheap, and Hacia Teotitilan. The writing is realistic and demonstrates an intimate knowledge of the characters who people the stories. Many of the stories examine masculinity, mortality, and life changes.
Characterization is deep, unique, and descriptive. The writer places you into the scene and one can visualize the characters with his deft descriptions. Pacing, in most stories, is quick and where it is slower, it's supposed to be that way.
I'd definitely read his other books.
My favorites: Please, Thank you; Uncle Rock, Cheap, and Hacia Teotitilan. The writing is realistic and demonstrates an intimate knowledge of the characters who people the stories. Many of the stories examine masculinity, mortality, and life changes.
Characterization is deep, unique, and descriptive. The writer places you into the scene and one can visualize the characters with his deft descriptions. Pacing, in most stories, is quick and where it is slower, it's supposed to be that way.
I'd definitely read his other books.
November 4, 2011
Dagoberto Gilb is an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction. In 2009, he suffered a stroke at his home in Austen, TX. I’ve been told it took six months for him to be able to begin to physically write again. Over the many long months it took for him to recover, he did what he does best � he wrote. Before the End, After the Beginning, a collection of 10 short stories, is the result. Read the rest of my review at .
March 24, 2013
One story in this collection deals specifically with the recovery process from the stroke Gilb suffered in 2009. It is tempting to read all the stories here through the prism of that experience, but they are more importantly mature reflections on change and mortality placed in Gilb's carefully observed American Southwest.
November 17, 2022
Once again Mr. Gilb demonstrates that he is among the only short story writers that creates palpable, interesting fiction that eschews the derivative & tiresome attempts of postmodern scribes, and the deadening academic derivations of entitled affluent mfa style products that win the approval of industry-oriented editors.
February 10, 2015
The first story is about a man who is hospitalized after having had a stroke. This was a very moving piece to me - the details sync up perfectly with some of my own experiences being serious ill and hospitalized. Because my mother had strokes, I was especially affected by Gilb's descriptions of struggling to communicate. The other stories in the collection are good reads :) also.
January 3, 2012
His best book yet. The first story "please, thank you" should be read by everyone who has ever had a member of their family in ICU. These stories in the book mirror the Mexican American community's experience in United States.
March 25, 2013
Because I had recently read two great short story collections, "Everything Begins and Ends at The Kentucky Club," and "Tenth of December," this one suffered in comparison. It had some good moments, but didn't grab me overall.
October 26, 2011
I review Dagoberto Gilb's story collection, "Before the End, After the Beginning" in The Boston Globe.
February 8, 2012
I liked that it was mostly about Austin and VERY well written. I want to see a novel from Mr. Gilb!
March 18, 2012
60 pages in I realized I just didn't care
October 16, 2012
Not as good as The Flowers.
January 2, 2013
Good stories. Good characters.
August 5, 2015
I loved the stories in this collection. The characters are real with real problems. And they are funny. I love it when an author can take a dark situation and inject some humor.
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September 17, 2012Awesome!!
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