BOOKS

NEW MEXICO JOURNEY

"Love preserves it. Twenty-six years old, this mechanical beauty, and not a rust spot, not a road scar to prove it. 'Sixty-five fleetside pickup Benito Perez bought new out of high school for cash money, little 283 under the hood and aquamarine, a landlocked metal dream of the sea. Only you can't quite make that out in this light. Early morning's still gray as a wet stir of ashes, the cottonwoods gray along the banks of the river, and the water itself a flat band of gray like sprung steel, and the junkyards are gray, and the orchards, and the tin roofs the truck passes on its way up the canyon are gray, too, and dusted with frost this October morning."

So begins Arroyo (Chronicle Books), the beautifully written debut novel by Summer Wood. The author lives in the New Mexico mountains, where she designs and builds houses. Wood's main character, the blues singer Willie Lee, has moved to the New Mexico mining hamlet of Los Fuegos. Trying to escape her own life, she becomes involved in the lives of the Hispanic families who have been there for generations. These townspeople include Chavela, a woman whose friendship with Willie Lee grows into romance.

SCREEN QUEENS

For years, entertainment journalist Dennis Hensley convened his wiseacre chums to watch movies and provide a running color commentary. Many of these flick-inspired gabfests ended up as magazine articles. Now Hensley has compiled several into the rollicking, snarky Screening Party (Alyson Books). Think Mystery Science Theater but more inclusive in its targets. A sample: "Whitney Houston's wig in The Bodyguard is like a tricornered hat. I keep waiting for her to cross the Delaware."

Hensley will read from Screening Party and sign books at Lobo (3939 Montrose Blvd) on October 23 at 7 p.m. In the meantime, check out two excerpts at www.dennishensley.com.

ANSWERS, IN ESPANOL

Have a Spanish-speaking friend or relative who is clueless about homosexuality? Hand him or her ¿Se elige? 300 preguntas y respuestas sobre la homosexualidad (Random House Español) by Eric Marcus. A Spanish translation of Marcus' Is It a Choice? published in 1999, ¿ Se elige? is a Queer Studies 101 primer. Marcus has collected 300 basic questions about homosexuality and provides frank, simple answers. Kind of an "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Queers but Were too Embarrassed to Admit You Had to Ask," ¿Se elige? tackles such basic questions as "What happens during gay sex?" and "Are people born gay?" Queries vary from the deadly serious ("Are people really killed just because they are gay?") to the whimsical ("Why don't lesbians wear makeup?"). Marcus responds to even frivolous inquires such as "Why do lesbians love cats?" with factual answers. He explains that no scientific studies confirming that lesbians love cats any more than the general population have been done, then cleverly points out that such a common belief is something a savvy cat food company might want to investigate.

If Marcus' name sounds familiar, it should. He was Greg Louganis' coauthor on Breaking the Surface and also wrote Together Forever: The Male Couple's Guide and Making History. -Olivia Flores Alvarez

MURDER, THEY WROTE

Two mystery writers signing new books October 21 at Murder by the Book (2342 Bissonnet) captured our fancy:

Lauren Henderson is one of leading proponents of tart noir. The gumshoes are gals in this crime-fiction subgenre. Explains the website tartcity.com: "These are neofeminist women, half Philip Marlowe, half femme-fatale, who make their own rules, who think it's entirely possible to save the world while wearing a drop-dead dress and stiletto heels." Henderson's novel, Pretty Boy (Three Rivers Press), is another adventure of English sculptress Sam Jones, dubbed by one reviewer "equal parts Nancy Drew, Camille Paglia, and sex columnist Isadora Altman."

Bisexual bookseller/poet private detective Clay Blackburn is the hero of Owen Hill's latest novel, The Chandler Apartments (Creative Arts), which is set in Berkeley.

For more information, visit www.murderbooks.com.