We chat with debut author Josh Galarza about The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky, which is a fiercely funny and hopeful story of one boy’s attempts to keep everything under control while life has other plans.
Hi, Josh! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Though I’ve been a writer for over fifteen years, I’m also a multidisciplinary visual artist specializing in printmaking, book arts, and sculpture. I’m clearly a creative at heart, and I use all of these mediums—storytelling included—to explore the subject matter I find meaningful and challenging. I was a Montessori teacher for many years in my first career, so my artist’s practice is shaped by a lifelong love of learning and a desire to affect positive change in the world. My research interests are ever evolving, but much of my work is focused on men’s issues and masculine performance, Chicano history and identity, queer history and identity, and body liberation. All of these subjects are explored in various ways in The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky. In hindsight, I realize that the thematic content of the book was quite a lot to juggle!
I love being a student as much as I love teaching, so going back to college in my thirties was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Currently, I’m having the time of my life in the MFA in creative writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University, where I get to teach creative writing to undergraduates. I’m lucky to be launching a career in publishing surrounded by such a vibrant, talented, and supportive community.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I laugh at the absurdity of this now, but when I was in the fourth grade I stumbled upon the books of “America’s Queen of Suspense,” Mary Higgins Clark. Young adult hadn’t taken off as a marketing category, and children’s books rarely held my interest, so here I was, this little kid, devouring these adult stories where ordinary women found themselves fighting for their lives against remarkably creative murderers in picturesque seaside hamlets. It wasn’t long before I was writing my own suspense stories on my mom’s electric typewriter. The most memorable included a six-year-old boy tragically drowning in Lake Tahoe while saving his baby sister from the clutches of a madman. What a little monster I was! You can imagine my delight when Clark replied to my fan letter with a handwritten note, which I hung on my bedroom wall, right beside the glossy photo of her I’d cut from one of her book jackets.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Miss Mallard Mysteries, a series of children’s books by Robert M. Quackenbush (yes, that’s his real name!) featuring a duck who solves crimes in exotic or spooky locales. I never thought of it until now, but the throughline to Mary Higgins Clark is pretty obvious.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk was my first foray into literary fiction, and I found his work incredibly instructive, particularly in how storytelling can lend itself as readily to social criticism as entertainment, and how prose can be just as artistic a medium as paint, ink, or clay.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Currently In Memoriam by Alice Winn, a moving gay love story that plays out over a WWI narrative that’s equal parts harrowing, horrifying, and thrilling.
Your debut novel, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky, is out July 23rd! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Emotional, vulnerable, funny, hopeful, bro-dacious.
What can readers expect?
While the story tackles challenging subject matter, particularly disordered eating and grief, it’s also a humorous ride through the growing pains we all experience as teenagers. I love finding the humor in awkward situations, so expect plenty of embarrassing moments. And because my empathy for anyone stumbling toward self-actualization is boundless, expect plenty of internal monologues wherein the protagonist, Brett, struggles through his confusion or wrestles with his mistakes as he navigates the rocky path toward becoming his best self. Oh, and lots and lots of comic-book nerdery.
Where did the inspiration for The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky come from?
This book was borne of desire I couldn’t have articulated at the time I started writing it: the desperate need to show myself compassion. I’d been sick since my teens with an eating disorder, and while I’d finally worked up the courage to seek treatment, I was still remarkably hard on myself. Years of unhealthy coping and self-destruction had decimated my self-worth, and it was hard to believe in my capacity to heal and change. Then suddenly there was this teenage boy in my mind who was feeling all the guilt, shame, and fear I was experiencing. While I struggled to show myself an ounce of compassion, I felt nothing but compassion for him. And if I could find a way to write Brett through his pain, maybe I could find my way through as well. I’m grateful to say I was right.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
It was particularly exciting to develop Mallory’s character, who openly defies everything we’re conditioned to believe about fat bodies. She’s a printmaker, so I got to write in projects for her that I’ve actually pulled in real life, such as the cheese dust prints that anchor a memorable scene. Plus, I love how empowered she is. She’s got a busy, complex life of her own with particular interests and goals, but she’s generous enough to take Brett under her wing anyway, perhaps recognizing that such benevolence is in line with those goals.
Mallory’s gender was an important choice because of the difference between how boys and girls are socialized, leading to very different levels of awareness of the societal and cultural issues that undergird conditions like body dysmorphia and disordered eating. (Just thinking about the effects of the male gaze alone might illustrate my point.) Patriarchy goes out of its way to ensure that boys like Brett won’t understand the dangerous path they’re on when anxieties about their bodies take root. And Brett doesn’t recognize the ways patriarchy subtly conditions him into harmful masculine performance. Mallory is savvy enough to recognize Brett’s ignorance but compassionate enough to not hold it against him, and I believe her rather heroic for her patience.
Ultimately, Mallory is a testament to my belief that any man should be so lucky as to be mentored by women. As a Montessorian, as a writer, as an artist, I’ve always had female mentors, and I was so much better in those endeavors—and at being human—because of it.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
After a decade of paying my dues, writing primarily literary fiction for adults that failed to sell, I had made peace with the idea that I was never going to publish a book. I was ready to leave writing behind and seek a career working behind the scenes in publishing, perhaps as a literary agent.
But serendipity was at play. I had, after all, returned to college to complete an English degree with a writing emphasis. Pages were due in my workshop classes twice a semester. I had to write something. In the beginning, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky was as much homework as it was anything else. However, I was also working hard in treatment. I was changing and growing by leaps and bounds. I began to recognize a marked difference between my older writing and this new manuscript: for the first time in my life, I was writing from a place of healing rather than a place of festering toxicity. The work looked different. It felt different. I could see all the best of me in these pages, without all the bad habits I now recognized were holding me back, habits that were indicative of my disease. Despite myself, I began to believe in what I was creating.
I was very lucky to write the book with the continual support and feedback of my cohort mates and mentors in the English department. I made incredible friends who were invested in Brett’s story and helped me shape it as I went along. By the time I graduated in 2021, I was ready to query agents, and, for the first time, I actually believed I’d land one.
What’s next for you?
I’m currently completing another YA novel, a rather audacious mashup of musical tropes and action film tropes that interrogates machismo culture within gay culture under white supremacy. It also tackles sexual trauma and conversion therapy, all housed in the late 1990s (I’m a firm believer in passing down queer history to the young). Plus, you know, song and dance numbers. Simply put? It’s kind of a lot.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Some recent favorites are Icarus by K. Ancrum (mesmerizing prose and an incredible eye for telling details); Into the Light by Mark Oshiro (I got to meet Mark recently and to say I was starstruck is the understatement of the year); The East Indian by Brinda Charry, a gorgeous debut about the first Indian man to travel to colonial America; Disorderly Men by Edward Cahill, a powerful and deeply satisfying debut about three very different gay men whose lives intersect as they navigate life under McCarthyism; and Promise Boys by Nick Brooks (snappy, moving, and creative in its delivery). I’m also re-reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (I’m Ness’s biggest fan!) and All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks (whenever my soul needs nourishment, hooks’ catalogue is right there waiting on my bookshelf).
A book I’m very excited to get my hands on is All the World Beside by Garrard Conley. His Boy Erased was incredibly affecting and validating for me, and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who has experienced trauma growing up queer in a deeply religious home. Plus, I’m stoked to get back to school, where I read for the Cabell First Novelist Award. I never know what entrants will end up in my pile for review, but that’s a big part of the fun of it for me, discovering fresh new gems (like The East Indian and Disorderly Men) simply by showing up for work.
