Gregorio Cortez Lira, a ranchhand of Mexican parentage, was virtually unknown until one summer day in 1901 when he and a Texas sheriff, pistols in hand, blazed away at each other after a misunderstanding.
Tastes, colors, and the dreamlike lushness of childhood memories infuse this mournful and propulsive memoir of personal and natural disasters-and the self-discovery made possible only when we choose what to leave behind.
