Nerve Curriculum by Manuel Paul López

In this remarkable book, lyric fabulist Manuel Paul López embeds parallel worlds that unite dreamtime and memory's "syllabus of smoke." Episodes relate the perils of youth and the absurdity of a "state-sanctioned self" amid the social fevers here and now, along with the exquisitely berserk stagecraft needed to mount a present-day rebellion of the senses. Parading across this federated horizon of possibility are a series of scene changes that emerge abruptly into telescopic view: Galaga arcades, panaderías, baseball fields, liquor stores, and kiosks by way of YouTube videos, gewgaw explosives, fire ants, and rosin bags. The breadth of experience connects Montevideo and El Salvador to Langley, Virginia, and California's Imperial County where the author's homeboy, Nestor–neighborhood peludo, sorcerer, artist-philosopher, and alter-ego–emerges as one of our great contemporary literary figures. Nerve Curriculum is the thrilling confirmation of a unique élan that can fuel the Latinx imaginat