Latin Satins

When four Chicana members of a Santa Monica household perform around town as a lesbian singing group called the Latin Satins, songwriter/singer Jessica finds her job as childcare worker on the line, a victim of the combined homophobia and racism of her charges' mothers. Meanwhile, Chic, the band's aggressive leader, keeps her housemates on edge by sliding from bed to bed, offering her cool brand of sexual comfort to everyone-but especially to Rita, whose neglect of her six-year-old daughter distresses everyone. Costume-maker Rafi suffers from AIDS, and a small girl in Jessica's class also is threatened by that disease. Racism, classism, sexism, economic politics and a beautiful, bird-watching Chicana lover should provide ample material to give a novel life and meaning, but this book is as flat as its pages, as blank as their margins, as formless as pulp. Not even Jessica's saucy, spoofy lyrics can make her story sing. Instead, it stays mired in prose like ``Holding hands, the singers bowed together, enjoying being validated.'' Sledgehammer anti-white rhetoric overwhelms each unreflective scene, while the author's chief thoughts on sexuality seem to hinge on proving that lesbians wear makeup too. (Sept.)