Chuck Etheridge
Author Portfolio
About Chuck
A self-proclaimed desert rat, Chuck Etheridge was raised in El Paso, Texas. After a stint in the US Navy keeping the coast of Southern California safe from the threat of enemy invasion, he attended the University of Texas at El Paso and Texas Christian University. In addition to his time in the service, he has worked as an actor, a convenience store clerk, a Rent-a-Poet, and a catalog copy writer before finding respectable employment as an English teacher, first at McMurry University and, later, at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction have been published in a variety of reviews and anthologized in a number of books, and he has written two plays that have been produced. He is the author of two novels, Border Canto and The Desert After Rain.
Border Canto
A literary tour de force. Like the Rio Grande itself, Chuck Etheridge's Border Cantos winds beautifully through the ethnically rich wold of El Paso, Texas and through the poignant terrain between innocence and experience. This book captures the bi-lingual, bi-racial texture of a region where both Anglo and Hispanic adolescents are forced to come to terms with the culture as they search for identity. This novel tells a captivating story, but it is the author's insight into forces that shape both border life and adolescent boys' psyche that makes Border Cantos exceptional fiction
The Desert After Rain
Part II of the Border Canto Trilogy
Desert After Rain, Book II of the Border Canto Trilogy: "The beauty of the arid urban and suburban settings is word-sketched so vividly that the ordinary transcends into something close to magical realism. By the end of the book, readers will have stretched along with Peter and learned quite a bit about friendship, taking chances, breaking with conformity, the value of rebelling at the right time, and the need to let our "demon" out occasionally." - Oscar de los Santos, author of Hardboiled Egg and Spirits of Texas and New England. "The book provides a vivid and convincing portrait of the border region and of the time and the generation . . . . Etheridge's book makes El Paso, circa 1973, a place the reader feels richer for having visited." - Nick Norwood, author of The Soft Blare and A Palace for the Heart.
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