Hoochie Mama: The Other White Meat

Mad Dog Rodríguez Trilogy #3

by Erika Lopez

Fresh from prison, Tomato "Mad Dog" Rodriguez returns to find her once-bohemian Mission neighborhood overrun by Latte People trading stocks on cell phones while careening down sidewalks in their Ford Explorers. Rents have multiplied to the square root of horror, forcing the families, elderly artists, and hippies - those who didn't already get run over on the sidewalks - to flee in droves, leaving behind only those willing to serve noisy coffees and change the deadly Firestone tires.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Humor, Graphic Novels

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2001

Reviews

[Ida · Rating 2 out of 5]

As always, her use of language is amazing, with sentences like "I hugged him for who he really was: a straight white boy into Internet humor who used Star Trek references to explain his sexual needs". Unfortunately, the plot is just not there. Up until the very last page, I am still waiting for the story to begin. Quite disappointing.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read by Erika Lopez, this book follows her return to San Fransisco after doing time (for that story read "They Call Me Mad Dog").
It's an epic journey to recover the grimy, sexy, wicked San Fransisco of the 70s and 80s that was lost to realtors, Starbucks, and yuppies during the dot com boom of the 90s.
Here's Erika talking about the condos that had recently sprung up around her home (one of my favorite sentences in the whole book):
"Their expensive shadows blocked out the sun and my working-class future, but in the darkness, I spotted a couple of salivating developers ogling, catcalling, and smooching at my single-unit shack with raging real estate hard-ons, wringing their hands greedily as if they were rubbing in the lotion of success."
Lopez uses her usual wit and filthy language to address concepts like gentrification and displaced communities, to a great end I think.
I did not love the dream sequences or their layout but other than that, no complaints.

[Damien · Rating 2 out of 5]

After "Mad Dog", I was really disappointed with this one. It had all the right elements, but fell flat. As if Lopez had exhausted her wit while writing the first 2 novels, or as if she was too busy, or had too many demands made by her publisher, or was just partying too much in celebration of her previous successes.

[Cher · Rating 3 out of 5]

She tried to get way too serious in this novel & seems to have lost some perspective which got in the way of this being as brilliant as the others in the trilogy. Still a good read & an excellent recording of a time & place (San Francisco in the 90's & early 00's)

[Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this so I could have finished all of the trilogy but by the time I got to this book it was definitely no longer something I enjoyed. I think I was probably too young to appreciate all the nuances and gentrification (esp since this was prior to my own move to San Francisco.)

[Lo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A satisfying conclusion to my favorite trilogy. I didn't want it to end. It made me want to immediately go back and start the while train wreck again.

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the first two, but still great.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last in the trilogy, read Flaming Iguanas and Mad Dog first.

[Jascie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isn't the cover enough! This book is really witty, fresh and funky. Erika Lopez has a great sense of humor

[Melutopia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fabulously hilarious read from Erika Lopez