Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club

Name: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Benjamin Alire Saenz
ISBN: 9798350879285

Author: Benjamin Alire Saenz

Narrator: Lee Osorio

Unabridged: 6 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/10/2023

Categories: Fiction, Hispanic & Latino, Short Stories

Synopsis

Benjamin Alire Sáenz's stories reveal how all borders—real, imagined, sexual, human, the line between dark and light, addict and straight—entangle those who live on either side. Take, for instance, the Kentucky Club on Avenida Juárez two blocks south of the Rio Grande. It's a touchstone for each of Sáenz's stories. His characters walk by, they might go in for a drink or to score, or they might just stay there for a while and let their story be told. Sáenz knows that the Kentucky Club, like special watering holes in all cities, is the contrary to borders. It welcomes Spanish and English, Mexicans and gringos, poor and rich, gay and straight, drug addicts and drunks, laughter and sadness, and even despair. It's a place of rich history and good drinks and cold beer and a long polished mahogany bar. Some days it smells like piss. "I'm going home to the other side." That's a strange statement, but you hear it all the time at the Kentucky Club.

About Benjamin Alire Saenz

Benjamin Alire Saenz is a highly regarded writer of fiction, poetry, and children's literature. Like these stories, his writing crosses borders and lands in our collective psyche. Poets & Writers Magazine named him one of the fifty most inspiring writers in the world. He's been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN Center's prestigious award for young adult fiction. Saenz is the chair of the creative writing department of University of Texas at El Paso.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jay on February 07, 2013

Amazing. This was a book of seven short stories. It was such an entertaining read that I probably could have read the whole book in a day or two. But each story was so powerful, after each one I just put the book down and thought about it for a while. I read the book over seven days, a story each ni......more

Goodreads review by luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) on August 28, 2021

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | | 4 ½ stars “No one had ever taught me how to love. And perhaps, in that department, I was uneducable.” Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club is heartbreakingly beautiful collection of short stories. These stories have Benjamin Alire Sáenz written all over the......more

Goodreads review by Alexis on November 06, 2016

Historias que te llegan al corazón, personajes con necesidad de buscar y encontrar. Un libro con fragmentos tan reales sobre la vida en la frontera.......more

Goodreads review by Roxane on August 05, 2013

Individually, the stories are powerful, and excellent. There is so much to love, particularly in The Art of Translation. As a collection, there is simply not enough variety. The narrators of the stories are largely indistinct. Nearly every one has indifferent parents, is mired in self-loathing, and......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on May 08, 2018

More than the Kentucky Club itself (a cool, seedy ‘lil place that welcomes you on your walking voyage into Juarez, Mexico—providing you with the best drunken time you can possibly have, if you are an American 18 year old and you're not afraid to tempt the cops and risk driving drunk) it is the theme......more