Aztecs at the Guggenheim

In the tradition of William Faulkner or Toni Morrison, author Richard Garcia considers the deepest, most basic of all human qualities: life itself. Aztecs at the Guggenheim is the powerful debut collection of short stories that often features telling jazz narrations that prove rich, complex, and ultimately hopeful. With wild scenes in jazz clubs, jazz artists and their hard-living lifestyles are a prominent theme. Some of the stories are written in a style that imagines jazz music as a template for prose, while others simply examine the life of American-born Mexicans and their invisibility. With a stealth use of the unreliable narrator, the author sheds light on minorities in the United States who live an invisibility that is central to each narrator and character in the collection. These short fictions work as a collection giving insight into the complex narrative of these most American characters.