The experiences of Soveida Dosamantes, a waitress at the El Farol Mexican Restaurant, parallel the book she is writing, "The Book of Service," a reflection upon women's roles in a male-dominated culture and the connection between work and family life

Face of an Angel

Literature & Fiction

Chávez, Denise

United States

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

An exuberant novel about a lovelorn woman obsessed with the Mexican film star Pedro Infante. Teresina ("Tere") vila is a divorced, thirty-something Chicana working "in the hinterlands of life" in Cabritoville, New Mexico, a small dusty town near El Paso, Texas. The love of her life is Lucio, a smooth-talking ne'er-do-well who will never leave his wife and ties Tere's heart in knots with a string of empty promises. Her diversions are few but intense, and center around her best fri, Irma, and her membership in the Pedro Infante Fan Club #256. "If you're Méjicana or Méjicano and don't know who Pedro Infante is, you should be tied to a hot stove with yucca rope and beaten with sharp dry corn husks as you stand in a vat of soggy fideos." If you're a gringo, think of him as a Mexican Elvis, a one-time carpenter whose career in song and on screen in such memorable movies as Nosotros los Pobres, Ustedes los Ricos, and Pepe, el Toro, propelled him to the heights of fame until he was killed after a plane he piloted crashed on April 15, 1957.Hilarious and heartring, Loving Pedro Infante is about the fictions we weave to justify loving the wrong mate.

Loving Pedro Infante

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Pedro Infante. Irresistible galán de la pantalla grande. Su imagen provoca mareos y suspiros de añoranza a las mexicanas y le proporciona a Tere çvila, Secretaria del Club de Admiradores de Pedro Infante #256, el ideal soñado con que mide a los varones, por demás reales, de su existencia. Tere vive en Cabritoville, Nuevo México, un pueblito fronterizo donde no caben secretos, y sabe muy bien que no podrá ocultar mucho tiempo su amorío con Lucio, el hombre casado que la trae loca — cuando no está robándose unas horas con él en el Motel Sands. Aœn más difícil que guardar el secreto le resulta mantener interesado al tornadizo de Lucio, ni hablar de los permanentes sermones que le suelta Irma, su mejor amiga, acerca del pésimo gusto que tiene para elegir amantes. Tere emprende la bœsqueda del sentido de su vida soltera y dificultad, bebiendo Tecate en un tugurio que mucho ha frecuentado, mirando videos de las películas de Pedro Infante que son su vida y que tal vez ya haya repasado hasta el exceso. Luego empieza a separar la lujuria y el amor verdadero, la ensoñación cinemática y el destino rasposo y complicado que a ella le pertenece si lo quiere.

Por El Amor De Pedro Infante: Una Novela

Vintage Espanol

Last in a long line of long-suffering women, once-divorced, once-widowed Soveida Dosamantes reflects on her 30 years as a waitress at the El Farol Mexican restaurant. Looking back, she hears a rich chorus of Latino voices whose touching, funny and sage advice shows her how to celebrate her true love and her true self.

Grand Central Publishing

In the soothing darkness of her local theater, thirty-something teacher's aide and divorcée Teresina "Tere" Ávila looks straight into the smoldering eyes of Pedro Infante and wonders where her life has gone. The impossibly handsome Mexican singer and movie icon died in 1957, but to Tere -- secretary of the Pedro Infante fan club chapter 256 -- he remains an everlasting symbol of the possibility of passion beyond her New Mexico town. Tere's passions are wasted on Lucio, the married lover who plies her with sweet kisses and false promises. Comfort comes in her adoration for Infante and in the companionship of her best friend, Irma "La Wirma" Granados. Then, one night at the Border Cowboy Truck Stop, Tere is forced to confront reality -- and the choices she must make to reclaim her life.

Atria Books

Comezón: It’s more than an itch. It’s a long-standing desire that will never be fulfilled. And, in this novel by award-winning author Denise Chávez, it is also a border town in New Mexico whose denizens’ longings are as powerful as they are, all too often, impossible. But in the feverish dance of life that seizes Comezón during its two annual fiestas, all things seem possible. As the townspeople revel in the freedom of the fiestas, their stories unfold in all manner of mystery, drama, and comic charm. In the middle of it all is Arnulfo P. Olivárez, master of ceremonies and befuddled patriarch of a less-than-tractable family. At the moment, he is calculating his chances of becoming mayor, as well as pondering the fate of his beautiful disabled daughter, Juliana. Arnulfo’s daughters (“the half and the whole,” he deems them) are the Fiesta Queen, Lucinda, a lovely, lost and wild girl, and Juliana, her half sister, wheelchair-bound but with soaring dreams of love for the local priest, El Padre Manolito. Their mother, the saintly Doña Emilia, attends to all her children, including Arnulfo, with grace. Lucinda’s unsuitable suitor, Ruley Terrazas, a tall, bumpy-skinned boy, is not to be trusted, nor is his father, Cuco “Matamosca” Terrazas, the local chief of police. And Rey Suárez, owner of the Mil Recuerdos Lounge, is haunted by his former incarnation as an immigration officer, an expert in spotting fake IDs. Between New Mexico and México, between Cinco de Mayo and the 16th of September, between the dreams and the realities of Comezón’s characters, something has to give. Each character is attempting to find love in this feverish fiesta called Life. And in the deft hands of Denise Chávez this tragicomic novel gives unerringly: pleasure, surprise, and the satisfaction of a tale well told.

The King and Queen of Comezón (Volume 13) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

University of Oklahoma Press

Copious, dramatic color photographs and poetic quotations illustrate these essays describing the whitewater rafting experiences of 15 prominent female writers sent down the Colorado River during the summer of 1997. 11x10

Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon

Arts & Photography

Ryan, Kathleen Jo

Lambert, Page

Photography & Video

UNKNO

Stories include "The Last of the Menu Girls, "Willow Game," "Shooting Stars, "Evening in Paris," "The Closet," "Space is a Solid," and "Compadre"

The Last of the Menu Girls

Arte Publico Pr

Rocío Esquibel is a girl growing up in a Southern New Mexico town with her mother and sister. She defines her neighborhood by its trees—the willow, the apricot and the one they call the marking-off tree. Rocio knows she was born in the closet where she and her sister now take turns looking at the picture of Jesus whose eyes light up in the dark. But at night she enters a magical realm, and in her imaginary Blue Room, she can fly. At first she is a mesmerized observer of the lives of older girls and their boyfriends, but as she finds a job at the local hospital, and discovers a passion for drama and stories, Rocio begins to make her own choices in love and work. Alive with the taste of tamales and the lyrical tang of the Esquibels’ talk, The Last of the Menu Girls becomes a rich celebration of Chicano culture, and a universal story of finding one’s way in the world.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chávez, Denise. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Chávez, Denise

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Chávez, Denise. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Face of an Angel

Loving Pedro Infante

Por El Amor De Pedro Infante: Una Novela

Face of an Angel

Loving Pedro Infante

The King and Queen of Comezón (Volume 13) (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series)

Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon

The Last of the Menu Girls

Face of an Angel

The Last of the Menu Girls