At the risk of sounding like a groupie I am so delighted to discover what a gifted and masterful literary storyteller you are with much understanding of the short story genre and the talent to actually explore eloquently with clarity and cogency complex themes that transcend ethnic boundaries.

Rodney Dakita Garcia's "The Right Place and Other Stories" is a luminous literary achievement that eloquently explores and elucidates with clarity and cogency complex themes that transcend ethnic boundaries. The stories are pithy with profound philosophies and observations reflecting the human condition and experience. With contemporary culture, events, and problems as backgrounds, the stories dwell on immigration, displacement, adaptation, maladjustment, terrorism, identity, duty and crucibles that test the human inner core. "Pasig Boy," the first story in the collection, is about the father and son, Joseph and Chris, who, seven months before, had just immigrated from the Philippines to San Francisco. As they struggle for survival and attempt to find their niche in their new environment, the father and son's relationship also become a struggle and their agendas divergent. The father, Joseph, a former leader of a gang in his native town, Pasig, was always a troublemaker, but is now preoccuppied in making it in the new country--working two shifts in his fast food job and finally feeling some improvement in his ordinary life. His son, Chris, was left unsupervised and in his own to cope with his displacement and isolation and eventually find belonging with the wrong crowd--a gang not much different from Joseph's group during his violent youth in the old country. Inevitabley their actions or inactions collide. Practising attorney, Rodney D. Garcia, is a gifted and a masterful storyteller with a remarkable range of style. Whether he is narrating in a macho-like voice telling the story of a Manila Mafia, or being campy, contemporary, and humor-filled in a strictly familiar American setting as in the story entitled "Swimsuit Edition," inspired by the special issue of Sports Illustrated, or being pensive, poetic, philosophical and stoic in a love story that do not quite end happily ever after, Garcia's writing has a gracefully natural cadence and recognizable realism with startling revelations. Not only Filipino Americans would enjoy this book, but Americans of any nationality will find a connection and commonality in the stories that touch on timeless and universal themes.

Herminia Smith, Library of Congress