Tome is a small, central New Mexico town that, on the surface, appears sleepy and uneventful. In Ana Castillo’s hands, however, it is revealed as a place brimming with life and all sorts of encounters and contrasts: the past with the present, the real with the supernatural, the comic with the terrifying, the indigenous with the Latino and the Anglo, and women with men. With an approachable, intimate, and conversational voice, and a distinctive narrative freedom, Castillo tells the story of two intense decades in the life of one Chicana family.