The dozen or so stories seethe and seep together into a design that can never be seen all at once ... These stories are not straightforward reckonings with history, nor are they satires or dismissals of it: they’re something more slippery and playful instead, sly and oblique, like ghosts or people dressed as ghosts performing a tragicomic roadshow for a motley array of strangers on a sweltering afternoon.
Flores doesn’t sacrifice compassion for the sake of weirdness ... All the stories here are excellent ... his own strange stories are some of the best to come along in quite a while. This is an accomplished book from an author determined to keep literature weird ... Tales from the Rio Grande Valley that are as beautiful as they are bizarre.
... inventive ... [a] remarkable range on exhibit throughout, from surrealism to prescience ... Flores seamlessly blends high and low references ... Using a blend of experimentation and magical realism, this conveys the border’s many sociopolitical shades. The zany set pieces add up to a work with explosive substance.
