Author Description

Over the past forty years, Gil Gevins has written over three hundred laugh-out-loud short stories detailing his surreal life living as an expat in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Most of these satirical gems found their way into local papers, where they were presented as “newspaper columns”. In truth, these little “slices of life” resemble newspaper columns very little, or not at all. The subjects are often inappropriate, politically incorrect and far from the nearest wall, as varied and as gritty as life itself. A small sampling of subject matters: Being stopped by and attempting to negotiate bribes with Mexican policemen; Negotiating the cremation feeds for a dog; Jaguar hunting with the drunkest human being in Jalisco; surviving the night in the worst hotel in Mexico; An encounter with an official Scrotum Reader; Attempting to buy Raicilla, the world’s most powerful moonshine, from men whose brains have been largely dissolved by the very beverage they are peddling; Attempting to convince a Mexican customs agent that the wooden toilet he was bringing into Mexico was for his personal use.The majority of these stories are so short they can be read over the course of an ordinary bowel movement—thus the title of the book. None of them, however, have been previously published in book form. These stories will make you laugh out loud, as well as educate you, in a bizarre sort of way, as to what daily life is like for an expat attempting to survive in the land of mariachis and tequila, where surrealism is the order of the day. Whether informative or funny, they are always highly entertaining, just what we need in these troubling days, and a great way to pass the time, along with everything else.