by Carlos Ramet (Author)
San Francisco in 1978 is a place of urban chaos. But for Diego Contreras it represents a dream of artistic success. As a recent college graduate from an immigrant family, he moves from Los Angeles to find something worth believing in and meets Saloma Sevilla, a wealthy Filipino-Chinese graduate student. Diego and Saloma develop an intense relationship through a series of adventures and misadventures. They must overcome the barriers of social class, family life, and past sexual abuse, as well as deal with a cast of quirky 1970s characters---drug-addled creative writing students, pompous professors, hangars-on in a boarding house, and tiresome family members. The City of San Francisco also shapes them. The mayor and city supervisor have been assassinated, an active shooter takes hostages in a downtown office building, the "White Night" riots have engulfed the Castro District and City Hall, and the Weather Underground has bombed a police station. Diego and Saloma must negotiate all this and come to terms with their own quiet limit of the world.
Author Biography
Carlos Ramet has taught creative writing at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, Columbia College in Chicago, and the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he earned his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature. His non-fiction work has appeared in Bolivian Studies, Studies in Popular Culture, and Popular Contemporary Authors. Ramet's short stories have been featured in the Bilingual Review, Chiricu', and Inlandia, among other magazines and journals.