No Country for Old Men
The House on Mango Street

With His Pistol in His Hand

Gregorio Cortez Lira, a ranchhand of Mexican parentage, was virtually unknown until one summer day in 1901 when he and a Texas sheriff, pistols in hand, blazed away at each other after a misunderstanding. The sheriff was killed and Gregorio fled immediately, realizing that in practice there was one law for Anglo-Texans, another for Texas-Mexicans. The chase, capture, and imprisonment of Cortez are high drama that cannot easily be forgotten. Even today, in the cantinas along both sides of the Rio Grande, Mexicans sing the praises of the great “sheriff-killer” in the ballad which they call “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez.”

Américo Paredes tells the story of Cortez, the man and the legend, in vivid, fascinating detail in “With His Pistol in His Hand,” which also presents a unique study of a ballad in the making. Deftly woven into the story are interpretations of the Border country, its history, its people, and their folkways.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • Velma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born in 1960.

  • Real Americans begins in New York City on the brink of Y2K, following twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern, as she falls in love with the charming heir to a pharmaceutical empire, Matthew. Years later, her son Nick, feeling out of place on a remote island, embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about his biological father, challenging the complexities of family, identity, and belonging.

    Read More about "Real Americans"...

  • An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home.

  • As it interweaves narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.