Butterfly Boy

Rigoberto Gonzalez is the author of many award-winning books for adults and children, among them So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks, a selection of the National Poetry Series; the novel Crossing Vines, named the ForeWord Fiction Book of the Year; and the teen novel The Mariposa Club, named to the American Library Association's Rainbow List. He is a contributing editor to the magazine Poets and Writers, on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the advisory circle of Con Tinta, a coalition of Chicano/Latino activist writers. He is associate professor of English at Rutgers University at Newark.

“González’s elegant, wrenching, and poetic memoir recounts his childhood among poor Mexican farmworkers, losing his mother at twelve, whippings for youthful cross-dressing, being abandoned by his father, and coming out and finding peace with his identity amid a culture where machismo is prized.” —Out“Wrenching, angry, passionate, ironic, and always eloquent about conflicts of family, class, and sexuality. The son and grandson of farmworkers, constantly moving between Mexico and the U.S., then and now, González weaves together three narrative threads: his angry present journey across the border with his estranged father; childhood memories of growing up a fat, bookish ‘sissy-boy’; and his urgent longing for his sexy, abusive older lover. . . . An unforgettable story of leaving home today.” —Booklist (Starred review)“This moving memoir of a young Chicano boy’s maturing into a self-accepting gay adult is a beautifully executed portrait of the experience of being gay, Chicano and poor in the United States. . . . González writes in a poetic yet straightforward style that heightens the power of his story.”—Publishers Weekly