Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Stories

Stella Pope Duarte

abr 2010 · Arte Publico Press

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Everybody says that the owner of Sal's Diner is a former Mafioso, but nine-year-old Joanna, whose mom has worked for him as long as she can remember, has a hard time believing he's a Mafia retiree. But one day, when two fat, toothless men who look like the Godfather's brothers show up at the diner, she wonders if maybe the rumor is true. And when Sal is arrested a few days later, Joanna's mother not only runs the diner while he's in jail, she also leads the charge to save him. Can the women who frequent his diner--the League of Women Who Live in Coffee Shops--save Sal from doing hard time in prison? Set against an urban backdrop of seedy motels and dilapidated houses next to industrial buildings and railroad tracks, Stella Pope Duarte's award-winning stories follow characters who make up the city's underbelly. Some strut through the lethal streets, flamboyant and hard to miss--flashy divas, transvestites, and prostitutes, like Valentine, "one of the girls who decorated Van Buren Street like ornaments dangling precariously on a Christmas tree." Others remain hidden, invisible to those who don't seek them out--bag ladies, illegals, and addicts.

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STELLA POPE DUARTE is the author of three novels: If I Die in Juàrez (University of Arizona Press, 2008), winner of the American Book Award; Let Their Spirits Dance (HarperCollins, 2002); and Fragile Night (Bilingual Review Press, 1997). Que bailen sus espiritus, the Spanish translation of Let Their Spirits Dance, was published by HarperCollins in 2003. Her latest work is the award-winning collection Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Stories (Arte PÏblico Press, 2010). She has twice been awarded a creative writing fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and is the recipient of the 2003 Arizona Highways Fiction Award. Stella Pope Duarte lives in Phoenix, where she writes and works as an educational consultant and human rights advocate.