Along These Highways
Or Joey, just back from basic training and ready to ship out with his Marine platoon. He's having beers with his best friend J.R. at Flojo's, a bar outside of Greenton run by Liz and Vicente, "the toughest couple in town."
Or Benny, who drops into Flojo's for the first time in years and finds his one-time friend Gumby drinking himself into oblivion. Turns out Gumby's luck is even worse than Benny's.
Or Virginia, the schoolteacher who's trying to become better educated in the hope that her son who went to Stanford will come back home to Corpus Christi. Or Eric, who spent all his money on two flashy wheels for his car and put them both on the passenger side so that they'll impress everyone on the sidewalk as he passes. Or Andy, who breaks into a home he's always wanted to see from the inside.
You'll want to know them all. And you will count yourself fortunate to have met them.
"Surprise endings, irony, and dark humor ensure the success of this collection among short-fiction fans as well as readers in the Southwest."—Booklist
"An outstanding debut."—Western American Literature
“Perez shines a high beam on lives never in the spotlight. His stories abduct you, sweep you across an America you never knew existed, and in the end change you. Good stories do that. A wonderful debut.”—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
“Rene Perez’s collection is much more than a fine first book by an enormously gifted young writer, it is one marking trail for an ignored culture to find its way to the nation’s center.”—Dagoberto Gilb, author of Before the End, After the Beginning