Reader! Reader!

The short stories in this collection--and some of them are very short, telling of just one incident--do an amazing job of evoking the landscape and climate of the region of Mexico described. It sounds like desert (more specifically, it sounds like the Colorado Desert in CA/AZ, which extends into Mexico). One of the stories, though, implies that the area is south of Mexico City. The landscape/climate is a character unto itself, and is so similar between the stories.

The main characters are poor, struggling, and doing what they need to do to get by. The stories do not specify if they are largely of Indian descent, though the intro says so. Perhaps Mexicans reading the original Spanish can tell, whether by names used, jobs held, or other clues that I miss as an American reading in English.