Party Mix
Gringa Latina

Sunday, August 5, 2007

FIFTEEN CANDLES

15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and Other Quinceañera Stories

Edited by Adriana Lopez Rayo. 332 pp. Paperback, $14.95

In Fifteen Candles, Adriana Lopez -- the founding editor of Críticas magazine -- presents the 15th-birthday tradition through a collection of mortifying, touching and hilarious stories. The authors narrate real situations in real families: that embarrassing moment on the dance floor when no one can waltz, the attendants of a girl's "court" sneaking off to make out with their boyfriends during rehearsal, the propensity to fall in love with the wrong person during the many months of party planning.

In one story, Alberto Rosas relates his experience as a chambelán de honor, the quinceañera's male escort. He inappropriately kissed the birthday girl and ended up sleeping with her lesbian mother. As a result, the dance floor at the boozy fiesta dissolved into a catfight starring the quinceañera, the mother and the chambelán's jealous girlfriend. Not a pretty picture.

Some of the authors, a diverse group in age and nationality, lament that they didn't have a "quinces" because their families were too poor or their mothers too liberated. Others describe being forced to go through the process despite all their objections.

Mostly, each story reveals a different aspect of the tradition. As Lopez writes, all together "they will remind you of that fantastically ridiculous but sentimentally meaningful time gone by."

-- Luz Lazo