Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories
Lopez shows us the spectrum of the Latino community in this  collection of 11 short stories. Her characters young, old,  black, white, female, male, alcoholic, and even wannabe  alcoholic all explore the permutations of their identities in  contemporary America. In the title story, we meet an aging  alcoholic, always "between jobs," who is rejected by her more  successful family. Yet only in an alcoholic stupor can she  conjure up the lost Spanish and the lost grandmother of her  childhood. In the delightful "After Dad Shot Jesus," a  fourth-grade teacher finally realizes that her close-knit family  has smothered and manipulated her all her life. Lo pez (English,  Brenau Univ.) is brilliant in her depiction of extended  families, as when she writes of "old aunts nested in lawn  chairs, fingering their bluish tresses and bickering noisily."  This superb collection has deservedly won Curbstone Press's  Miguel M rmol Prize for debut fiction in 2002. Mary Margaret  Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, ORCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.