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The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive
By
Vanessa Libertad Garcia
Fiat Libertad Press, 2009
A Review
by
David Fraser, editor Ascent Aspirations Magazine
In The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive by Vanessa Libertad Garcia takes us on an
authentic quirky, wacky journey toward the polling booth for the 2008 US Presidential Election, a journey that speaks
more to the state of America than all the rhetoric a voter hears from both candidates, one the hard-knocked Vietnam
Vet republican and the other the charismatic black idealist. Her story takes us from humiliation, hatred, sorrow
and longing toward acceptance, surrender, compassion and trust.
Vanessa's prose/poetic style is lyrical with fine flowing bizarre descriptions. In the first poem,
"The Dead End Days" she introduces us to the anonymous night crawlers, "slithering on gravel" dressed
to the nines, "hunting for love in loveless places" In humiliation we see the main narrator drag out
a litany of humiliation from childhood to the present that makes her "want to crawl into a hole where
butterflies go to die." This image is exquisite and sets the tone for all her encounters in the future.
In the individual pieces she touches on so much of what is wrong with America and for that matter
the western world. She tells us of celebrities who are turned into deities by sleep-walking spectators.
She describes a society drugged "from the alarm to the car to the office to happy hour and back home
to a bottle of wine and TIVO. Now there's a pattern with which many in America can identify.
Marta, her main character, describes the club-girl life with humorous imagery of the one-dimensional.
The vapid holograms who frequent The Short Stop Bar, girls, lesbian and straight, who everyone wants
to devour. We are told of cougars, self-consumed vixens, and "sluts with no self-esteem".
Marta struggles with procrastination, ankle deep in El Poco Loco bags and empty forty-ounce bottles of malt
liquor. She waffles back and forth to stave off leaping from a cliff in Malibu. Like the lives of the characters
on the margins of her travels, her life, is a cocktail of hope and despair, where maybe, just maybe what is needed
is "a good strong, true hug." Her world is falling apart where the former excitement of getting "ready for a big
Wednesday night in the distant city of unattainable orgasms" is waning. For another character in this odyssey
toward election day, the Dream is not what Martin Luther King envisioned but one of elaborate costumes, money
growing on trees, and anonymous abundant sex without disease.
At Zuma Beach Marta, after her darkly comic analysis of her options for suicide, meets Eugene, a Vietnam
vet with PTSD who can't function or cope in any close relationship, yet finds freedom in collecting bottles.
Unlike her, he is worse off but ironically has no thoughts of suicide.
Marta's journey to the voting booth which is the culmination of self-examination leads her to thoughts of
compassion, trust and self-actualization. She says, "Maybe I should get some of my own things to fight for…"
The book is a unique, exciting collection of prose pieces, prose poems and poetry, beautifully rendered in raw
lyrical language. This is an Odyessey of the self, which is well worth the read.
Press Release
Los Angeles, CA February 2, 2011 -- The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive
is a collection of short stories and poems interwoven into a gripping narrative that follows a group
of gay & lesbian Latino club kids during the course of the 2008 presidential elections. As they
plunge deep into the agonizing lows of anxiety and addiction, we see how they affect and are
affected by the national politics happening around them. Selling online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
and many other sites.
Vanessa Libertad Garcia: Cuban-American writer & filmmaker Vanessa Libertad Garcia grew up between the burbs’
and hoods of Los Angeles, California. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University, she’s completed a myriad of successful
projects in both the film and literary worlds. On a cinematic front, she’s worked on films that garnered the HSF/McNamara
Arts Grant, debuted on PBS’ Independent Lens, and screened at top festivals such as The LA Film Fest, The Habana Film
Fest, and Outfest to name a few. She’s had writings published by venerated literary staple Lambda Literary
and the rising art & lit magazine Amor Fati. Her first book The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable,
Embarrassing, Repulsive is drawing laudable reviews. Ms. Garcia is currently in development
for her first feature film based on the books’ characters titled Dear Dios, and her second book Bloody Fucking Hell.
The Fiat Libertad Co.
Filmmaker & Writer
Main Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog
Email: Vanessa Libertad Garcia
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