An NPR Best Book of the Year!A Southwest Book of the Year!A Texas Observer Book of the Year!Stories of working-class Mexican America, penned by one of the contemporary legends of Chicanx literature."Gilb''s familiar signature intimacy brings us face to face with marginal housing, gritty and exhausting jobs, street people, sex, earthquakes, fouled air, physical handicaps, racism. . . . Some of the stories are sidewinders: at first they indicate layers of something juicy and sweet but turn out to pierce the reader with painful splinters of insight."—Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain" and The Shipping NewsDagoberto Gilb''s latest cast of characters includes a young family whose exposure to a mysterious cloud of gas alters their lives forever; a high school dropout whose choice to learn the ways of the world from the adults at work leads him into a dangerous dalliance; a former high-rise carpenter who meets up with an eager old flame; an aging Chicano, living alone, whose children watch over him for signs of decline; and more. Gilb''s distinct narrative voice offers his readers a warm welcome as he peels back the surface of everyday life to seamlessly guide us into realms of of myth and fable.