From Publishers Weekly
Ch vez's latest (after Face of an Angel) est  de aquella it's a terrific novel full of abuelita wisdom and raunchy cantina wit. Trapped in Cabritoville, N.Mex., and in love with Lucio, a married man who refuses to commit, 30-something Tere Avila is a teacher's aide by day, a regular at local bar La Tempestad and a 24/7 member of the Pedro Infante Club #256. Mid-century movie star Infante is Elvis Presley and Cary Grant rolled into one. Though a womanizer, Infante's passion for life captured the souls of the Mexican people, and in death he reigns supreme as the ultimate male icon. When they're not at La Tempestad, or eating at Sophia's Mighty Taco, Tere and her best friend, Irma, indulge in weekly Pedro-athons. Matching his movies to their emotional state, the two use the films as an escape but also as a hilarious, poignant vehicle for their desires and anger. The movies highlight Tere's misguided love for Lucio while cleverly exposing the Mexican psyche. Ch vez's voice is at once zany and knowing. She is la gran mitotera a big troublemaker, stirring up rollicking mischief with wacky humor delivered in the lyrical tempo of Chicano slang. The language is bawdy, sometimes downright sucio, but expressive in a way that pure Spanish or English couldn't be. A liberating Chicana coming-of-a-certain-age tale, rooted in a profound love for la gente, the book gives us heroines we didn't know we had and makes us understand that love means embracing flaws our own as well as those of others. (Apr. 15)Forecast: Ch vez, a spirited reader, will embark on a 12-city author tour, with Pedro-athons planned for Chicago and L.A. Sales in the Southwest should be particularly strong, but this rollicking novel could easily be Chavez's biggest yet nationwide.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


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. Appropriate for public and academic libraries. Lee McQueen, SUNY at Buffalo Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Chavez's bittersweet novel follows the lives of a group of Chicanas who idolize 1950s Mexican movie star Pedro Infante and dream of finding their own Pedros in the wasteland of contemporary Cabritoville, Texas. Even in their pain, these women are bursting with raucous humor. Listen to narrator Tere Avila: "I'm attracted to short, bossy men with small backs and tiny butts who have to wear their belts halfway down to their knees because they can't find pants that allow for ultra-sized huevos." Yes, but she dreams, as do her friends, of Pedro, the Mexican Elvis. Like Emma Bovary and like Eustacia Vye in Hardy's Return of the Native, Tere and her friends' ability to live in the real world is threatened by the strength of their commitment to dime-romance fantasies. But unlike Emma and Eustacia, Tere is a survivor, too strong to let even dreams of Pedro get the best of her. This thoroughly engaging novel walks the delicate line between comedy and pathos perfectly, using laughter to pull us back from pain but never letting us forget that the laughs come with a price. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

Loving Pedro Infante is an infectious, lyrical novel about Teresina "La Tere" Avila, a border-town teacher's aide who is obsessed with the legendary Mexican radio and film star Pedro Infante. That Chavez is also a playwright will come as no surprise to readers, as this evocative tale is full of hilarious dialogue that brings Tere and her close friend Irma "La Wirma" Granados to life. Chavez first delighted readers with her raucous debut, Face of an Angel, earning the author comparisons to heavyweight Latina contemporaries Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, and Ana Castillo.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Teresina ("Tere") Avila is a divorced, thirty-something Chicana working as a teacher's aide "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 daughter, but ties Tere's heart in knots with a string of promises. Her diversions are few but intense, and revolve around her best friend, Irma "La Wirms," and her membership in the Pedro Infante Club #256." "Pedro Infante was an icon of Mexican popular culture, a onetime carpenter whose career in song and on screen propelled him to the heights of fame. He was killed in a plane crash on April 15, 1957 (or was he?), and as secretary of the Pedro Infante Club, Tere is a walking almanac of facts about this tragic hero. When her covert relationship with Lucio begins to consume her life, Tere becomes increasingly dissatisfied with who she is and the choices she has made, until a chance encounter one night at a border-town truck stop forces her to reevaluate her hopes and expectations."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Margaria Fichtner - realbooks.com

hough the flat, hot New Mexico setting of Denise Chavez's exuberant, titillating, engaging new novel, Loving Pedro Infante, may not look like much to those just passing through, it can be a good place to live if you are an old gossip like Ofelia Contreras, "who loves to talk about the lowlife she's married to who works at White Sands as a car mechanic, or if you're happily married and have kids in Little League and band and like to make banana creme pies in your spare time and your husband belongs to a bowling league like Sista Rocha."

But for thirtysomethings Irma and Tere, Cabritoville is a wasteland. Time to throw in the old "toalla"? Not quite.

Tere, the narrator of Loving Pedro Infante, would do almost anything to find a good man to match the "hombre" of her dreams, Pedro Infante - king of the golden age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and '50s.

Tere and Irma, with their weekly "Pedro-athon" orgies of junk food and old films flickering on the wide-screen TV, may be the most avid members of Cabritoville's Pedro Infante Fan Club.

As she so skillfully demonstrated in her previous novel, Face of an Angel, Chavez has her forefinger raised to measure the hot cultural crosswinds sweeping the southern borderlands.

Dagoberto Gilb

Read this book and you soon forget about the handsome Pedro Infante — you'll be loving the beautiful Denise Chávez . . .

Sandra Benitez

If you're looking for a book that'll make you laugh, cry, and set you to thinking, then search no more . . .

Sandra Cisneros

. . . I read this book while throwing laundry in the washer, late in bed without realizing the sun was rising . . .

John Knoll