Noted Chicano film director and writer Jesús Salvador Treviño gives us an off-beat, magically real and at times raucous vision of life in the barrios of Arroyo Grande, Texas. In the title story, a huge sinkhole opens up in Mrs. Romero’s front yard, and the reader is introduced to the neighborhood characters as they stop by to investigate the goings-on. Each person takes home something that surfaced from the sinkhole—including a 1965 Smith Corona typewriter; the frame of a black, 1949 Chevy Fleetline; and a Max Factor makeup kit—and the subsequent stories, often featuring young people, deal with the impact those items have on the characters’ lives.