Barefoot Dogs

January 12, 2015
When these linked short stories begin, things are still good for the extended Arteaga family. For teenaged Fernanda, who narrates the first story, it’s the “year everybody’s planning to spend the summer in Italy,” everybody being her and her affluent friends, none of whom has ever taken a cab or subway in their native Mexico. But then Fernanda’s grandfather, patriarch José Victoriano Arteaga, is kidnapped, and body parts start arriving in the mail. The rest of the stories chart the family’s dissolution as they (along with their maids—who are like family, except, of course, for all the ways they aren’t) flee Mexico City. In an assured debut, Ruiz-Camacho inhabits the minds of Arteaga’s extended family, as well as his mistress and the more peripheral characters of his life. In exile in Austin, Madrid, New York, and Palo Alto, the Artegas struggle with the frightening situation, as well as their sense of themselves and the world. A grandson tries to make friends in his new school; a son can’t be a father to his own newborn; a daughter takes a lover; secrets and loss are everywhere. Experiencing the ways in which various family members cope—or fail to—with their new reality makes for gripping, somber reading.

April 1, 2015

Although it's not immediately apparent, this debut collection features linked stories about a wealthy Mexican family whose members scatter abroad after the kidnapping of patriarch Jose Victoriano Arteaga. Each story lands like a punch, from the opening tale about young people crossing invisible boundaries in Mexico City to Arteaga's son wandering the sizzling streets of Madrid with his dog, Zurbaran, in search of his father. VERDICT Energetic and colloquially written, this engaging collection shows what it's like to live in a world that isn't quite yours.

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