“I wanted nothing more than to make you happy. As you poured the tequila, I cut the limes using your knife. The sharp blade felt dangerous in my hands, as I forced myself to concentrate so as not to dismember my own thumb. You asked for the instructions because you wanted to do what was culturally appropriate. So I guided you: lick the salt, shoot the shot, bite the lime.
‘¡Arriba, abajo, al centro, pa’ dentro!’
White-silvery agave pulsed through my veins and burned behind my eyes. We bit the lime.”
Hi friends,
A wee bonus free post from me this week celebrating the UK launch of a novel I’ve just reviewed for Glasgow Review of Books. I was delighted to be able to interview Andrés last month and talk about family, grief, writing sex and the new wave of queer literature on both sides of the Atlantic. You can read the review and the edited version of our conversation here.
A bit about Andrés…
Andrés N. Ordorica (he/him) is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there).
He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Morley Lit Prize, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In January 2024, he was selected as one of The Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists.
Hope you enjoy listening or watching along, and I'll be back on Sunday with a words on this summer's sounds, scents and sentences (because alliteration).
Lindsay x
In conversation with Andrés N. Ordorica