Peel My Love Like an Onion

Has there ever been a character in a novel stranger, more hypnotic and more entrancing than Carmen La Coja? Not for me. Peel My Love Like an Onion is the story of Carmen La Coja or the Cripple who has a crippled leg, shriveled from polio. It doesn’t stop her from pursuing her dream of becoming a Flamenco dancer, from being beautiful and seductive or from carrying herself with pride. However, when Carmen is not dancing, she loses her surety, her poise and grace.

The book is the story of Carmen’s finding of herself. It is a love story as well. Carmen falls in love with a young gypsy dancer in her troupe, Manolo the nephew of Augustin, leader of the troupe and also Carmen’s married lover. There is love and betrayal, bitter disappointment and loss, confusion and sexuality in this marvelous book about the unquenchable spirit that resides in Carmen La Coja.

After years of dancing, her polio returns and she is forced to stop dancing, to take odd jobs and move home with her parents. Slowly, Carmen is feeling suffocated, bereft and just as slowly she fights her way back and reclaims her life, her spirit and her identity.

Ana Castillo writes with exquisite detail. We feel every emotion and sensation. Like the onion referenced in the title, this book has layers and layers to be peeled away and tasted. It’s a powerful and strangely beautiful story that will stay with you and pop into your head at odd moments to make you smile.

Loving Pedro Infante

“If you’re Mejicana or Mejicano 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”

- Denise Chavez (Loving Pedro Infante)



Okay, I just had to start my review off with that passage because when I read it, I laughed aloud. It is just such a typical Xicano, Mejicano curse that I’m sure we’ve all heard something like it from our abuelitos or our parents.

Loving Pedro Infante is the story of Teresina Avila and her friend Irma “La Wirms” Granados who live in Cabritoville and belong to the Pedro Infante Club #256 along with other women in the small town. These women are Pedro crazy and I can understand that being a big Pedro Infante fan myself.

The story is also about love and obsession. Tere is in love with an hijo de la… named Lucio who is of course, married and a slimy worm. That doesn’t stop Tere from loving him though and from being obsessed. She sneaks off to meet him in a motel, battles with her best friend over him, hides and sneaks. She is ashamed of the relationship but that doesn’t stop her from seeking him out. Why do some guys do this to us? I think all of us women have had our Lucio. Handsome devils, good at making us feel that we are unworthy when all the time, the problem is their own insecurities, bullshit and emotional issues.

The book is great. I loved the characters, was at times frustrated with Tere, liked her, thought she was an idiot, wanted her to kick Lucio’s tight Mexican butt all the way out of Cabritoville and cheered her on. The fan club were so much like all my abuela’s old friends that swooned over Pedro Infante and loved their daughters and families fiercely. Denise Chavez tells a hell of a story.

Denise Chavez’ Loving Pedro Infante is a book that I started off loving and couldn’t put it down to a book that I tossed behind my bed in a corner to collect dust and accuse me until I picked it up again. Why did I toss it? Because the character that Teresina Avila is in love with – Lucio was so much like my own hijo de la… ex boyfriend that it made me uncomfortable. We were in yet another or our cycles where we were together again after having been broken up and the book made me see things in him that I didn’t want to see or wasn’t ready to. No, mine wasn’t married but he was still an hijo de la… all the same. He pulled his disappearing acts like Lucio and he was just generally unavailable and I was just as obsessed as Tere which is probably why I was so darn mad at her for half of the book.

It’s not often that an writer can look into the reader’s heart and soul and pluck the strings so well that the reader believes the book is about their own life. Denise Chavez does this easily and while I was uncomfortable at times, it was a damn good book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved reading about Pedro Infante too. She gives lots of great tidbits of his life and films, which were a nice bonus for this Infante fan.

Viva Pedro Infante and Viva Denise Chavez! Oh, and to my Lucio (you know who you are), go stand in the soggy fideos!

Rain of Gold by Victor Villasenor

The first time I read Rain of Gold, I thought to myself, “My God this is my family!” Victor Villasenor has the ability to draw in the reader and make he or she feel that they are living the story. This is particularly true in Rain of Gold.

The book follows two people and their families very different journeys through the hard times of the Mexican Revolution and into the U.S. and the very different life waiting for them there. They meet new challenges in and find each other as they adjust and learn to make a life in this new country.

The book abounds with the mystical love of spirits, nature and God that is so commonplace for us Mexicanos. I believe it is hard for people not of our culture to understand just how real the spirits are to us. This is not magical realism but daily life us. Mr. Villasenor shows that aspect of our culture, our grandmothers so well that it brought tears to my eyes as I remembered my own mystical, wise and wonderful grandmother.


The fact that Victor Villasenor is extremely dyslexic and encountered myriad problems in school at a very young age makes this book all the more astounding. He writes with pathos, humor and his love for his beautiful family shines through it all. His simple style of storytelling makes you feel you’re sitting on the floor listening to an uncle or other family member and you are completely enraptured and caught up in his spell