"Cal has always lived in the shadow of his brother, Frank, a complicated narcissist who was doted upon by their mother and beloved by the girls in their hometown-including Cal's own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape Frank's insidious presence, Cal pursues a different kind of freedom in the world's wild spaces, prospecting for gold and precious minerals everywhere from the heat of the desert at the Mexican border to the Alaskan chill to the suffocating...

"In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the story, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, and gentrifying barrios. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between."--