This is exactly how a winning debut should read-fluid and raw, redemptive and inevitable. Underneath the humor runs a gifted storyteller's nuanced take on the paradox of the outsider. A triumphant first swing from one of the new stars in the next generation of Chicano lit. --Manuel Mu oz, author of What You See in the Dark M ndez's stories emerge out of the gritty and working-class barrios of El Paso. At times gesturing towards the magical realism...