The Aztec Love God

I met Tony Diaz at a lit festival this fall--it was the coolest experience. Here's the review I wrote for my local newspaper: His words jump off the page and grab you by the throat. From his colorful descriptions of the world around him to his staccato burst of comedy from his "joke scrapbook"-it's all a strong and unyielding voice. With the constant struggle with his life and his identity, the novel is still relentless and uncompromising in its abundant comedy. High school student and aspiring comedian Tio Duarte is the novel's narrator and main character. He struggles throughout the novel, literally, with his name. No one calls him by his name: his father calls him "Junior"; his girlfriend Rosie and secret lover Farah call him "sweetie"; his manager calls him "T-O;" his adversary Principal Autruck calls him "Marquez." Intelligent enough to take entrance exams for others, Tio makes money by falsifying documents, as well his own identity. This allows him to create several monikers-and a quick exit if things go awry. There's Antonio Marquez, the average high school student months away from graduation. There's "D," his rebellious high school alter ego who leads an affirmative action group called MALO (Mexican-American Leadership Organization), which does more stealing and selling of examinations than anything else. There's his "over 21" personality, Lorenzo Cassanova, who easily weaves in an out of nightclubs-he's a smooth talker who's having an affair with Jester's exotic dancer girlfriend. Most important to the novel are his on-stage personalities. An aspiring comedian, Tio starts the novel trying to perfect his comic role of The Aztec Love God. Jester, and old, bald comedic manager offers to take Tio under his wing. There's one condition-has to ditch his The Aztec Love God act. So he does, offering the club audiences a little more comfortable, and funny, Latino stereotype. One of the main questions the novel presents is whether or not Tio will break out of the traditional -both on stage, and with his own life. In order to do that, he has to take control. Jester tells him which direction to take his comedy. His girlfriend Rosie announces Tio's non-existent marriage proposal, and even purchases the ring he'll give her; Rosie and Tio's father haggle over their finances, their wedding and their entire life.Tio openly despises his father who disregards his comedic aspirations. Once made rich by a "lottery," his father speaks in broken English and goes through the daily motions although he has no job to go to after reading the morning paper. Tio is especially peeved that his father won't help him financially, blowing his college fund on what he believes to be the original "Leave It To Beaver" set house. In his life, and in his act, it becomes the hilarious Mexican version, "Leave It To Burro." With Tio's attitude toward him, it's ironic that his father worked for years as an el peladito,

I had heard about Tony Diaz and THE AZTEC LOVE GOD through the writing group Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which he is the founder of in Houston, Texas. So I went to check it out, and I also read the book. I think they are both alike and linked. THE AZTEC LOVE GOD is cutting edge, and is changing what is expected of Latino Literature. The book is hilarious, but also very wild, and also experimental. On one level, you will laugh out loud at some of the things in the book, the comedy, the situations. The main character Tiofilio Duarte is very funny. It is so funny, and so crazy at times with its form and style that you might miss how deep the book is. It really does take a hard long look at what it means to be an American, what it means to be an artist, how tough and how smart you have to be to survive in this day and age. It will challenge and change what you think of as art, literature, and identity. This is what Diaz does not only with his writing but with Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.

The Aztec Love God is an experimental text. It is one that does not invest in the style of the Chicanos of the 1970s, nor of the high brows of New York. It is a book about a young Latino coming of age even when challenged to go down the easy road. Durante the comic, encounters Lester, a would-be manager, who only sees Durante in terms of a stereotype. Durante has to decide which road he should travel, and then, look toward a past that has never really been explained to him. To read the text, one most getting ready to laugh, then think. It is not an airport novel, nor a romance. It is a dose of reality, con un poco humor.