Barefoot Dogs: Stories / Ruiz-Camacho, Antonio

An Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2015: When the patriarch of a wealthy Mexican family is kidnapped his immediate family is forced to flee the country – leaving their money, friends and home behind. In each of these nine linked stories, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho follows a different member of the Arteaga family as they deal with the legacy of their last name and the tragedy that befell it. In ‘Okie’, a grandson struggles to make sense of his new home in Palo Alto; in ‘Origami Prunes’ Arteaga’s daughter begins an affair in an Austin Laundromat; and in the title story, a new dad wanders the Madrid streets adrift and aloof, seeing visions of his father. Barefoot Dogs depicts a searing portrait of innocence and experience: the unshakeable belief that everything will work out against the salty hard certainty that loss, betrayal and evil are lurking around the corner. These stories are fresh, funny and full of life. What makes them so memorable is the universal connection we all have to home, that at some point in our lives, all we want is to be back there. For many of us that is a given, and for others, it is an impossibility – a crushing reality that Ruiz-Camacho executes flawlessly. – Al Woodworth