{"id":16288,"date":"2023-09-11T18:10:28","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T18:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/?p=16288"},"modified":"2023-09-12T03:49:14","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T03:49:14","slug":"myriam-gurba-publishes-another-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/myriam-gurba-publishes-another-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Myriam Gurba Publishes Another Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Myriam Gurba has just published another book – Creep, <\/em>a collection of essays – so <\/em>it’s a good time to reprint my creative feature “Who’s Myriam Gurba?” which originally appeared in October 2020.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Gurba is a feisty, talented, and photogenic writer and social activist. Whether or not readers agree with her opinions, she entertains with a deft literary touch.<\/em><\/p>\n

I receive many newsletters and one of them is Electric Literature but I usually don\u2019t have time to read fairly long stories since I\u2019m at the computer to write unless something rivets me like this emailed headline: \u201cIt\u2019s time to take California back from Joan Didion. Myriam Gurba writes that the first lady of West Coast letters needs to share that honor with the Mexican Diaspora: \u2018California belongs to Joan Didion because her ancestors stole it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I eagerly click the link, thinking, \u201cHold it, Ms. Gurba, racism is a universal flaw, and since you broach the issue of land acquisition, whose ancestors \u2018stole\u2019 California from the indigenous people before Didion\u2019s forefathers moved in?\u201d The Spaniards were the original conquistadores of the future Golden State as well as in much of the Southwest and Mexico and Central America and South America. The progeny of Moctezuma and his Aztec subjects are likely more aggrieved by images of Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s than of General Sam Houston.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s pivot back to the subject of Joan Didion, whom Myriam Gurba considers an \u201conion\u201d because \u201cshe\u2019s very white, very crisp, and she makes people cry.\u201d Not nice or particularly relevant but it\u2019s clever. She writes a lot of intriguing phrases. Even in high school Gurba nicknamed Didion \u201cthe windy bitch\u201d after empathizing with her essay \u201cLos Angeles Notebook.\u201d Remembering this title from her seminal collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem<\/em>, I retrieve my reading tablet and light up the book, and imagine Gurba has done the same with this essay as well as two others to be discussed in a moment.<\/p>\n

In \u201cLos Angeles Notebook\u201d Didion evokes \u201csomething uneasy in the\u2026 air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension.\u201d And this leads to \u201chot winds from the northeast whining down through the\u201d passes and \u201cdrying the hills and the nerves to the flash point.\u201d After that people get tense and some kill themselves or others and even eject corpses from moving automobiles, and people from other countries also misbehave when besieged by \u201cmalevolent winds.\u201d Gurba writes an equally arresting passage about her experience with the Santa Anas, concluding \u201cinvisible hands\u201d of the windstorm \u201cgrabbed my dark hair, winding it around my neck, garroting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps Gurba is simply looking for narrative tension when she scolds Didion for failing to mention the Santa Anas \u201care more than winds.\u201d They\u2019re people such as General Santa Anna, conqueror of the Alamo, and splendid guitarist Carlos Santana. Gurba may also want to kick Didion\u2019s ass for the heavyweight title of Santa Ana winds. She certainly likes rhetorical catfights and contrives one, later in this essay, when Didion writes of rushing to the supermarket in her bikini and a hefty woman rams her cart into the author\u2019s and rebukes her, \u201cWhat a thing to wear to the market.\u201d Unsatisfied with this didactic measure, the tormentor hounds Didion \u201call over the store, to the Junior Foods, to the Dairy Product, to the Mexican Delicacies\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Hold it right there, you windy onion, Myriam Gurba erupts: the \u201cPUNCHLINE\u201d ending this scene \u201cis the only time the word Mexican appears in this iconic essay,\u201d so it\u2019s imperative to rebel \u201cagainst Didion\u2019s racial grammar\u2026 (and) unseat her as California\u2019s thin-lipped literary grand dame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before moving to the next alleged racial transgression of Joan Didion, I\u2019ll share my only personal, albeit secondhand, anecdote about the sage from Sacramento. Thirty years ago, long after my contemporaries had graduated from college, I returned to the academic saddle for about the tenth time, having considered myself too busy with independent study and writing to attend class or do homework. One of my English teachers was a sixtyish fellow proud to regularly tell us, \u201cAfter class I\u2019m going to go jogging with my young woman,\u201d she being his girlfriend. I wish I\u2019d asked her age but settle for the following exchange.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoan Didion was in my class when I taught at McClatchy High School in the early 1950s,\u201d said the vigorous professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was she like?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was mousy. I\u2019d tell her not to walk in the halls during my lectures and she\u2019d come in late and tell me she\u2019d done exactly what I told her not to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myriam Gurba, a teacher as well as writer, evidently feels Didion needs more classtime to understand she\u2019s using \u201cracial grammar\u201d in the essay \u201cGuaymas, Sonora.\u201d From the opening sentence Gurba pounces, first because it\u2019s a \u201crun-on\u201d and next because of disturbing implications: \u201cIt had rained in Los Angeles until the cliff was crumbling into the surf and I did not feel like getting dressed in the morning, so we decided to go to Mexico, to Guaymas, where it was hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the problem? Gurba concludes Didion thinks \u201cM\u00e9xico is something for gringos to do in their piyamas\u2026 on rainy days. It\u2019s a pastime and the point of doing M\u00e9xico is similar to the point of camping.\u201d She\u2019s further offended that Didion doesn\u2019t paint a lovely landscape, but the onion isn\u2019t describing Puerto Vallarta. She\u2019s saying \u201cthe desert, any desert, is indeed the valley of the shadow of death.\u201d Didion and \u201cMr. Joan Didion,\u201d who in fact was distinguished author John Gregory Dunne, could\u2019ve driven to Barstow or Needles, hot and foreboding spots in the United States, but they wanted a different language and vibe and sought relaxation in a place foreign but nearby. They didn\u2019t head south to gawk at el diablo.<\/p>\n

We now proceed to the subject of cannibalism, which often recalls images of the Donner Party. Since childhood, Gurba writes, she\u2019s been \u201ctitillated\u201d by the party\u2019s eerie downfall and \u201calways believed that the pioneers who suffered got what they deserved.\u201d They ate two Indians and a Mexican along with white friends and relatives but, if only three corpses would\u2019ve provided sufficient protein, we know the names on the menu during that era of frenzied Western expansion and destruction of indigenous and Mexican communities. Didion views the nightmare more personally, accepting what she was taught as a child: members of the Donner Party \u201chad somewhere abdicated their responsibilities, somehow breached their primary loyalties, or they would not have found themselves helpless in the mountain winter.\u201d She believes they at least did not break the \u201cvestigial taboo\u201d of eating their own kin. I disagree.<\/p>\n

My deflection of a few punches at Didion is of interest but tangential to my primary discovery: Myriam Gurba writes good prose. So, who the hell is she? To learn more I summon Se\u00f1or Google and think what a pretty lady, tiny and with a sculpted face reminiscent of Frida Kahlo. Other similarities we\u2019ll later discuss. Check out the heat \u2013 perhaps firestorm is more accurate \u2013 generated by her recent book review titled, \u201cPendeja, You Ain\u2019t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature.\u201d Using my high-intermediate Spanish supplemented by computer, I read that as, \u201cBitch,\u201d you ain\u2019t\u2026 \u201cMy Row with\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

One must guard against hasty hyperbolic opinions, but many online readers will nod when I say, \u201cThat\u2019s the most kickass book review I\u2019ve read.\u201d Reviews generally bore me, yet I\u2019ve already reread Gurba\u2019s twenty-five hundred words. Who\u2019s the target of such sass? She is Jeanine Cummins, author of American Dirt<\/em>, a novel about a Mexican mother and son fleeing Acapulco-based narcotraficantes who\u2019ve just murdered sixteen family members, including the lady\u2019s husband, at a quinceanera. Sounds like an entertaining story. Publishers had to bid to buy it and Flatiron Books paid seven figures. American Dirt rocketed to bestseller status, Oprah blessed it for her book club, and movie rights have already been sold. So, what\u2019s the matter?<\/p>\n

In her review Gurba quickly slaps readers with some street lingo, noting the book \u201csucks. Big time. Her obra de caca\u201d (work of shit) is guilty, \u201cin the great American tradition\u201d of \u201cappropriating genius works by people of color; slapping mayonesa on them to make palatable\u201d to readers in the United States; and \u201crepackaging them for mass racially \u2018colorblind\u2019 consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Magazine originally hired Gurba to write a review for six hundred fifty bucks but rejected her effort because she wasn\u2019t famous enough to write a \u201cspectacular\u201d takedown in such a \u201cnegative\u201d way. Ms. instead sent her a kill fee of thirty percent. She posted the review free on an academic website. The organ of women\u2019s liberation needed something more genteel than lines like this, \u201cPity inspires (gringos\u2019) sweet tooth for Mexican pain\u2026 resulting in a preference for trauma porn that wears a social justice fig leaf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gurba also opines that Cummins \u201cbombards with clich\u00e9s\u201d and misuses Spanish words \u201cyielding the same effect as store-bought taco seasoning\u201d and conveys a \u201clandscape of carnage\u201d that will confirm the fears of Trump followers and presents a heroine, Lydia, who is \u201cshocked by\u2026 day-to-day realities\u201d that are well known to Mexicans and, most galling, Cummins and her editors believe she is the \u201csavior\u201d here to \u201crepresent faceless brown people.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty more all tight and polished.<\/p>\n

I buy American Dirt<\/em>, as well as Myriam Gurba\u2019s memoir Mean<\/em>, and blaze through the latter while struggling with the blockbuster. In defense of Jeanine Cummins, I must note that I\u2019ve always been an indifferent and often unwilling reader of novels. I prefer literary nonfiction and short stories, and usually mention that when longer works of fiction are discussed. At this moment it\u2019s far more helpful to let Gurba and Cummins discuss this matter. They dare not do so in person, of course.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Zoom enables the fantasy combatants to see each other while millions of pay-per-view fans watch on giant screens throughout the Americas.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyriam, your bitter diatribe has caused me a lot of pain,\u201d says Cummins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not bitter, I\u2019m angry. A few years ago you called yourself a white woman. Now, suddenly, you\u2019re Latinx based on one of your grandparents coming from Puerto Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve reconsidered my family history as well as that of North America. I\u2019ve read dozens of books on the experiences of Mexicans at the border and the rest of the country and I\u2019ve talked to countless people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t make you a Mexican,\u201d says Gurba.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never said or implied that it did. I was moved by stories of the Mexican people and needed to try to write something about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou failed, as I\u2019ve so forcefully articulated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIncorrect. The majority agrees with me. I\u2019ve been on the New York Times bestseller list four months, and ninety percent of my Amazon reviews are four or five stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaking her head, Gurba says, \u201cPredictable. You\u2019ve got your white audience locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s very disingenuous, Myriam. I don\u2019t believe you\u2019re unaware that several distinguished Latina writers have praised my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cummins picks up a paper and shakes it. \u201cSandra Cisneros says, and I quote, \u2018This book is not simply the great American novel. It\u2019s the great novel of Las Americas. It\u2019s the great world novel. This is the international story of our times. Masterful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI admire Cisneros,\u201d says Gurba, \u201cbut that\u2019s the most fulsome utterance I\u2019ve ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s what Julia Alvarez thinks. \u2018Riveting, timely, a dazzling accomplishment. Cummins makes us all live and breathe the refugee story.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to Reyna Grande. \u2018I found it compelling. I noticed its shortcomings, the things she got wrong about our culture and experience, but saw past them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see past your errors and arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy next book is about a gay Chicana writer from California. I\u2019d like to hire you to fact check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBitch, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I\u2019m back online learning more about Myriam Gurba. She frequently describes herself as a gay or queer writer, and that is fine but will later confuse us. Meanwhile, reading Mean<\/em>, I appreciate her stylistic precision and wicked tongue.<\/p>\n

When Myriam was about five, her mother, the most beautiful woman her daughter had ever seen, almost died during the birth of twins and had to be evacuated to the hospital at Stanford University. Her father quickly followed, and Santa Maria neighbors took care of the little girl. They were white, \u201cand that\u2019s not necessarily a good thing.\u201d One night, Myriam writes, the white lady of the house prepared a fine meal that included Brussels sprouts and four delicious parfaits that had enlivened Myriam\u2019s taste buds as she watched them being prepared. During dinner she cleaned her plate except for those damn Brussels sprouts. Eat those, Myriam. No, said the girl. Either eat your vegetables or no dessert, the lady warned. Myriam still refused, and watched the couple and their child down their delights, and years later she recalls that the family \u201clooked cold and evil. They looked like American presidents.\u201d But I bet they looked better than Carlos Salinas de Gotari.<\/p>\n

An ostensibly tough little girl is growing up in sunny Santa Maria a hundred sixty miles north of Los Angeles. She sees who the enemies are, and most are white and many male. Indeed, she states that \u201cbeing rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Being a bitch is spectacular.\u201d As we\u2019ll see decades later, she was more correct than she imagined. Even then she should\u2019ve loudly rebuked the boy in her class, sitting at the same table, who routinely reached below and rubbed between her legs. And the teacher, from his nearby desk, once stared at them as the violation occurred yet did nothing.<\/p>\n

White female writers were also deficient. Joyce Carol Oates bored her. So did precocious Anne Frank, in her mid-teens hiding from Nazis in the crowded annex in Amsterdam. She never finished The Diary of Anne Frank. She nevertheless devoured books in high school and blew away all the white kids in college prep essay writing. Read Mean and the two book reviews earlier described, and you won\u2019t doubt that.<\/p>\n

During this period of literary development, Myriam reveals she began kissing and touching some of the girls from school. These urges had appeared no later than age eight when another young girl showed her copies of Playboy and similar magazines. Seeing the pussy and tit photos dazzled her, and she \u201cloves tits\u2026 (and) knew I wanted to connect my body to these bodies, and the faces mattered, especially the lips and the eyes\u2026 They communicated an invitation\u2026 and I was ready to ask the women to marry me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon graduating from high school in 1995 Myriam took her passions to the University of California, gaining entry in part because of affirmative action. She was a qualified student but needed to adjust to new academic styles and standards after receiving an appalling C on an English paper. She also got a C for the course and that dastardly grade rankles still. Her first year at Cal nevertheless ended satisfactorily and she returned to Santa Maria for summer vacation.<\/p>\n

Myriam notes she wanted to free read after an academic year of studying what others dictated, and she did, but she also wanted to interact with people in a stimulating environment. That\u2019s often a challenging goal, especially in a small isolated city like Santa Maria. She found a volunteer position in a small art museum. One of her fellow docents, an elderly lady, had once volunteered at a women\u2019s center, which I\u2019d call a shelter. She told Myriam, \u201cI think some of the women liked it\u2026 (One lady\u2019s) husband had stuck his rifle inside of her and threatened her. She stayed with him. How could you\u2026 if you didn\u2019t like it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I understood how a lady could battle a situation like that but stay with it, but I felt ill equipped to explain this paradox,\u201d Myriam writes twenty years later, expressing fear and confusion that enveloped her around age forty in Long Beach. \u201cI always get crushes on people who are mean to me\u2026 I\u2019m mean but I\u2019m not so mean I\u2019ve ever raped anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Santa Maria for the summer of 1996, nineteen-year-old Myriam remembers walking through a nice neighborhood in the afternoon, headed for the elementary school where her mother taught. The scent of nearby flowers and trees soothed her until \u201chands circled my rib cage and slid down my waist\u2026 He lifted my skirt. Fingers were inside me, his breath and mouth were on me, and the rest of the details belong to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the man finished he ran away and she pursued him until she realized she was \u201ca mouse chasing a lion.\u201d In a few weeks, feeling or at least hoping she was all right, Myriam returned to Cal for the fall semester and dedicated herself to studying, exercising, and dieting. She also cut her luxuriant dark hair in the style of \u201cG.I. Jane.\u201d In this time of intense discipline, which she believes was a response to PTSD, she neglected one necessity, failing to eat enough, and one morning passed out in a university gym.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Myriam Gurba begins Mean<\/em> with a taut and lyrical scene about a lady being raped, murdered, and mutilated in a Santa Maria park. We later learn her name is Sophia Torres. She is the second most important character in the book, though we never meet her, and forever a part of Myriam\u2019s soul. Sophia lived in Arizona with a boyfriend who was murdered. She retreated to Santa Maria, we don\u2019t know why, and worked in the fields and appeared depressed and lonely and then a man killed her.<\/p>\n

Between early November and December he assaulted three other women who survived. He\u2019d also attacked Myriam a few months earlier. She was his first known victim. Tommy Martinez, a young man her age, was arrested during her 1996 Christmas break. She decided not to cooperate with the district attorney. There was already plenty of evidence to put Tommy Martinez on death row. He still resides there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not going to go down in local history as the girl who was weirdly raped by the Mexican guy who murdered the lady in the park,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

After escaping back to Cal she earned excellent grades and occasionally, but without evident pleasure, dated men. Instead, with glee, she announces, \u201cEvery night was ladies\u2019 night.\u201d She pursued her passions in many hotspots in what legendary columnist Herb Caen called Baghdad by the Bay. Clubbing got boring, we assume, and Myriam met a \u201cmasculine\u201d blond lady she soon refers to as her wife and, after graduating with honors in history, they lived together in Berkeley before moving to Long Beach where, ultimately, she became a history teacher.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Myriam Gurba shares more piquant observations and experiences before Mean ends but her story continues on a variety of websites. We want to know more and, clearly, she wants us to have the information. I review her Facebook photos and click on a typewritten page I originally skipped. It\u2019s the first of ten full pages of narration that comprise a DV-100 Request for Domestic Violence Restraining Order. I\u2019ll briefly summarize the nightmare described. She began dating a male teacher early in 2015 and they \u201cdated off and on\u201d for three years. Myriam alleges he used \u201ccoercive control to abuse and entrap me. He subjected me to intimidation, humiliation, degradation, isolation, and violence. He strangled me, raped me\u2026\u201d and plenty more for about three thousand words. I\u2019m saddened to learn of these experiences.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also stunned that talented and educated Myriam Gurba waited three years to take action. Her \u201cboyfriend\u201d had been tormenting her a long time before he raped her, yet she stayed in the relationship. Understandably, she was terrified of a violent man a foot taller and hundred pounds heavier. But she had options. The first, and I say this to all ladies and other victims of criminal abuse, pick up the phone and dial nine-one-one. Don\u2019t make excuses. Pick up the damn phone after the first outrage. I\u2019m reminded of Maya Angelou\u2019s dictum: the first time people show you who they are, believe them.<\/p>\n

I call a good friend who\u2019s a former district attorney and ask him to read the first page of the DV-100 and tell him more about Myriam Gurba.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised a tough and teacher-credentialed woman like Myriam would tolerate all that abuse,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am, too,\u201d says the attorney. \u201cBut maybe she\u2019s not as tough as people think. I\u2019ve seen too many cases of women taking this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember Myriam\u2019s ominous words quoted above about submitting to violence that pervaded her state of mind shortly before being raped in 1996 as well as in recent years: \u201cI always get crushes on people who are mean to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That recalls my experience of long ago dating a beautiful young woman whose mother told me her daughter didn\u2019t like nice guys like me. She preferred guys who beat her up.<\/p>\n

Whatever Myriam Gurba\u2019s feelings may have been two years ago, she still seeks retribution on social media, particularly Twitter. During a frenzied half-hour in early June, she tweeted on this subject six times. Among other assertions: \u201cThe law is set up to protect male batterers\u2026 (The cop) wanted to know why I didn\u2019t scream while I was being strangled\u2026 He was disgusting and he was a DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DETECTIVE\u2026 When I reported to a cop that my boyfriend had told me he had been thinking about killing me, the cop told me not to sorry: all men have those fantasies\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, Myriam has been demanding that police departments be \u201cdefunded.\u201d And how will that work? She tweets, \u201cFor the folks wondering who will catch the rapists and robbers if the police cease to exist, understand that the police have never been interested in catching themselves\u2026 This country is a haunted house\u2026 FUCK THE POLICE TO INFINITY AND BEYOND\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Myriam sometimes headlines her tweets: \u201cWhite People\u2026\u201d In one she posted a picture of abolitionist John Brown and said whites should be like him. In fact, most are. They\u2019re repulsed by slavery. Still, Myriam regularly bemoans racist whites, racist administrators, and racist teachers, but her ardor, properly focused or not, sometimes causes problems. A few months ago some school officials, without warning, escorted her off campus at Long Beach Poly High School where she\u2019d been a popular history and psychology teacher. Myriam told the Los Angeles Times, \u201cThey said my social media was disruptive to the school.\u201d She was placed on paid administrative leave. She\u2019d been campaigning online against Libby Huff, a Poly teacher some students allege addressed them with racially vile language.<\/p>\n

No mas of that. Let\u2019s follow some links and journey deeper into happy Facebook and find masked Myriam in a print bathrobe standing on apartment stairs, masked while kissing ace photographer and good friend Geoff Cordner, also masked, Myriam unmasked lazing in bed with a beautiful cat whose eyes glow, masked in profile in a forest, masked in the desert, masked on a cloud-covered Highland Park street, masked entering a carniceria, unmasked jogging on a hillside trail, muscular in a bikini tiptoeing toward the sea, hooded in the Denver snow, under a sombrero in front of a rocky mountain, one of her small hands enveloped in a large male hand.<\/p>\n

I step to a bookcase and retrieve Frida Kahlo, The Camera Seduced. If you\u2019ve looked at these photos you haven\u2019t forgotten them. If they\u2019re new, be prepared for the graceful and emotional presence of an artistic lady speaking to you. Online you may be moved looking at images of Myriam Gurba, an athletic new-century version of the broken lady who wielded the beautiful bloody paintbrush. There needs to be a book of these photographs. Myriam and her muse probably already have publishing plans. If they don\u2019t, I\u2019ll work something out with Diego Rivera.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Activating my heavenly cell phone, I say, \u201cHola, Diego. This is Tom. How\u2019s it goin\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWonderful. And you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty fair. What year are you in? Not 1954, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely not. We never go there anymore. We spend a lot of time in 1929.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe year of your wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour best one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m painting now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and I\u2019ve got someone for you to paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t do commissions anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll paint her for free,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer skeletal structure. And the intangibles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, Tom. Send her to my San Angel studio tomorrow morning, but not till Frida leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold it, Diego. You\u2019re going to behave professionally, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notes: We emailed Myriam Gurba the option to be interviewed for this ebook but received no reply.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n

Myriam Gurba \u2013 Mean, a true-crime memoir published by Coffee House Press, 2017. \u201cPendeja, You Ain\u2019t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature\u201d on Tropics of Meta, December 12, 2019. \u201cIt\u2019s Time to Take California Back from Joan Didion\u201d on Electric Literature, May 12, 2020. There is also much information on social media, most of it written and posted by Myriam Gurba. Scores of photographs of her were taken by her friend Geoff Cordner.<\/p>\n

Myriam wields hammer and quill with equal dexterity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myriam Gurba has just published another book – Creep, a collection of essays – so it’s a good time to reprint my creative feature “Who’s Myriam Gurba?” which originally appeared in October 2020.\u00a0 Gurba is a feisty, talented, and photogenic writer and social activist. Whether or not readers agree with her opinions, she entertains with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[639,180,1994,1945,28,415,224,129],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nMyriam Gurba Publishes Another Book - George Thomas Clark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/georgethomasclark.com\/myriam-gurba-publishes-another-book\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Myriam Gurba Publishes Another Book - George Thomas Clark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Myriam Gurba has just published another book – Creep, a collection of essays – so it’s a good time to reprint my creative feature “Who’s Myriam Gurba?” which originally appeared in October 2020.\u00a0 Gurba is a feisty, talented, and photogenic writer and social activist. 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