Rising in a malignant mist or squatting silently in impenetrable darkness, the Aztec god Chac-Mool presides over [Burnt Water, an] impressive collection of stories about the inhabitants of Mexico City. A symbol of the paradoxes that beset modern Mexicans, he is at once worldly and unknowable, dangerous and faintly ridiculous, real and imaginary. The central question—whether he is alive or dead—is also paradoxical, reflecting the burnt water of the title, for "the Mexican character never separates life from death." Thus Fuentes's eleven tales are full of mystery, the mystery of how to live in the midst of death.

As usual, Fuentes is in full command of both form and language, slipping effortlessly from realism to fantasy and from the casual to the profound. Some of his stories are less weighty than others—for instance, the sardonic "The Old Morality," in which a young boy learns the...