Dates and Reading Chronology:

January 29, 2009 -Dreaming in Cuban

February 26, 2009 -Loving Pedro Infante

March 26, 2008 -Faultline & Outrageous (1^st book & sequel)

April 30, 2009 -The Youngest Doll

Books and Description:

1. Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García

Paperback: 272 pages

Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 10, 1993)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0345381432

From Library Journal
Garcia’s first novel is about Cuba, her native country, and three generations of del Pino women who are seeking spiritual homes for their passionate, often troubled souls. Celia del Pino and her descendants also share clairvoyant and visionary powers that somehow remain undiminished, despite the Cuban revolution and its profound effect upon their lives. This dichotomy suffuses their lives with a potent mixture of superstition, politics, and surrealistic charm that gives the novel an otherworldly atmosphere. Garcia juggles these opposing life forces like a skilled magician accustomed to tossing into the air fiery objects that would explode if they came into contact. Writing experimentally in a variety of forms, she combines narratives, love letters, and monologs to portray the del Pinos as they move back and forth through time. Garcia tells their story with an economy of words and a rich, tropical imagery, setting a brisk but comfortable pace. Highly recommended.

2. Loving Pedro Infante By Denise Chavez

Paperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Washington Square Press (March 19, 2002)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0743445732

From Library Journal
In a small, dusty Texas-Mexico border town called Cabritoville, thirtysomething Tere Avila is in love with a married man. She also loves Pedro Infante, a 1940-50s era film star whom the author describes as a Mexican Elvis. Tere’s life revolves around her membership in Pedro Infante’s fan club and her friendship with Irma. According to Irma, “You can learn so much about Mejicano culture, class structure, the relationships between men and women, women and women, men and men, as well as intergenerational patterns of collaterality in Pedro’s movies. The movies tell you what Mejicanos embrace and reject in their lives.” Through Tere, Chavez explores femininity and cultural identity. While many Chicano language and cultural references abound, Chavez explains the context. Readers familiar with works by Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, and Julia Alvarez will enjoy Chavez’s new work.

3 & 4. (In conjunction with each other)

Faultline: A Novel By Sheila Ortiz Taylor

Paperback: 126 pages

Publisher: Naiad Pr; 1st edition (January 1982)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 093004424X

Outrageous by Sheila Ortiz Taylor

Paperback: 188 pages

Publisher: Spinsters Ink Books (August 30, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1883523729

“Faultline, published a quarter century ago, was a laugh-out-loud novel about a dyke with six children, her custody battle for those kids, and three hundred rabbits. Skip ahead a few years to OutRageous, also set in the ‘70ies, and motorcycle-riding Latina poet Arden Benbow is relocating her kids and her partner (but not the rabbits) to Florida, where a small liberal arts college with a very conservative administration has hired her as a token twofer: she’s both a woman and an ethnic.” San Francisco Bay Times

5. The Youngest Doll By Rosario Ferré

Paperback: 170 pages

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (January 1, 1991)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0803268742

Product Description

A gentle maiden aunt who has been victimized for years unexpectedly retaliates through her talent for making life-sized dolls filled with honey. “The Youngest Doll,” based on a family anecdote, is a stunning literary expression of Rosario Ferré’s feminist and social concerns. It is the premier story in a collection that was originally published in Spanish in 1976 as Papeles de Pandora and is now translated into English by the author. The daughter of a former governor of Puerto Rico, Ferré portrays women loosening the constraints that have bound them to a patriarchal culture. Anger takes creative rather than polemical form in ten stories that started Ferré on her way to becoming a leading woman writer in Latin America.

The upper-middle-class women in The Youngest Doll, mostly married to macho men, rebel against their doll-like existence or retreat into fantasy, those without money or the right skin color are even more oppressed. In terms of power and influence, these women stand in the same relation to men as Puerto Rico itself does to the United States, and Ferré stretches artistic boundaries in writing about their situation. The stories, moving from the realistic to the nightmarish, are deeply, felt, full of irony and black humor, often experimental in form. In closing, she considers how her experience as a Latin American woman with ties to the United States has brought to her writing a dual cultural perspective.

By: Cheryl
Cheryl is a computer networking professor at Sante Fe College for the past 14 years and is a highly sought after internet and computer consultant. Previous to her tenure at Sante Fe, Cheryl spent seven years working for the American Red Cross in Jacksonville. During that time she served as a founding member of the North Florida Aids Network, Vice-Chair of the North Florida Drowning Prevention Coalition and wrote many grants for HIV/AIDS education training. Cheryl has, also, had the privilege of being mother to two wonderful human beings. Her 19 year old son Sean and 17 year old daughter Jessie have been very supportive of her commitment to Wild Iris Books and have been very helpful its growth and success. Cheryl is the logistical and strategic thinker of the team who is one of the most non-judgmental, compassionate persons on the planet.
Website: http://friendsofwildiris.org/members/cheryl/