Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. "In a voice that is all at once hilarious and mischievous, searing and seething and sardonic, Lorraine Lopez presents, in her most necessary book to date, a celebration of the liberating power of bad behavior," writes Heather Sellers about HOMICIDE SURVIVORS PICNIC AND OTHER STORIES. Most of the stories are set in the South and focus around family relationships, by birth and choice, among characters from Latino and other backgrounds. Lydia, a childless linguist, takes care of her precious four-year-old niece while the mother faces jail. Social worker Rita rents the empty half of her duplex to her loser ex-husband, with disastrous results. And in the title story, teenager Ted winds up attending a homicide survivor's picnic with his sister, who is mourning her recently slain boyfriend whom Ted barely knew. "We are moved by her characters' difficult dilemmas without being traumatized," writes Lynn Pruett. And Manuel Munoz agrees, "All of the refined and subtle humor we've come to expect from Lopez.... A marvelous collection."
Author Hometown: NASHVILLE, TN USA
About the author: Lorraine M. Lopez lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she teaches at Vanderbilt University. Her awards include the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction, the Paterson Prize for Fiction, the International Latino Book Award for Short Stories, and the inaugural Miguel Marmol Prize for Fiction (selected by Sandra Cisneros and awarded by Curbstone Press, for a first book-length work of fiction of a Latino/a writer). She has written a book for young adults, Call Me Henri. Her latest novel is The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters, which was a Los Compadres/Borders selection. Her forthcoming books include a new novel, Limpieza, and an edited essay collection, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working Class Roots.
Reviews:
http://www.forewordmagazine.com/homicide-survivors-picnic
http://www.newpages.com/bookreviews/2010_01/january2010_book_reviews.htm#Homicide_Survivors_Picnic
http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_14208256
http://vivirlatino.com/2009/11/30/lunes-libro-homicide-survivors-picnic-and-other-stories.php
http://www.chapter16.org/content/against-closure
