Hemingway Award. The following year, recognition abounded in the form of prestigious literary awards and a flood of critical attention for The Magic of Blood (The Magic of Blood63-74)Gilb has earned many awards including the Institute of Letters Award for best book of fiction and best short story in 1993. In El Paso, he gave up on New York publishing and sold his story collection to the University of New Mexico Press. He didnt think he could support his family with his writing, but he could feel in his bones that he couldnt go on in construction. In 1994, Grove Press purchased rights to Gilbs The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna, a novel of inquiry into the lives of residents of a Texas YMCA, which closes with an unsettling conclusion. Gilb once wrote a story, Parking Places, about the absurd tensions born of urban constriction. And this particular misadventure is emblematic enough of the shortcomings of life in his adopted hometown that he weaved an abbreviated version of it into a recent essay (Muy Macho8).Love is a powerful force that drives one person to draw a deep affection towards another. But in the short story Love in L.A., the definition of love is the exact opposite. Through Jake, the protagonists definition of love is expressed in different fashions, none results in anything positive; He portrays being lazy, irresponsible, somewhat poor, and perhaps something of a scam artist, looking for his freedom. Several essences reveal the main character true identity throughout the story: a love for image, self-conceit, and daydreaming. Jake controls how well he behaves, using image as a grand part of his motivation. First, the author portrays Jakes worries towards the bumpers of the car before thinking of the other people involved in the accident. After finding out that there is not an impressionable scratch, he perks up (Gilb 231). Then, while talking to Mariana, he straightened out his less than new but not unhip c...
