"Unlike people who are born in hospitals, in an ambulance, or in a taxicab I showed up in an adobe cottage with a thatched roof that stood at one end of the only street in Jalcocotbn, which everybody called Jalco for short." p. 3

"Somewhere between my third and fifth birthdays I began to have a memory. The forest trail, the street, the zopilotes, the arroyo, my mother's potted garden, the summer showers, Josy whistling an imitation of a song bird - these were some of the earliest pictures and sounds which for some reason I could recall whenever I wanted to." p. 20

"Coronel was standing on one foot, erect and watchful, under the willow. I knew something that he didn't - that people were talking about him as the only gallo that had ever beaten up a zopilote - something to be proud of even if a zopilote...