Barefoot Dogs: Stories - Hardcover

Ruiz-Camacho, Antonio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1476784965 ISBN 13: 9781476784960

Publisher: Scribner, 2015

Synopsis

An unforgettable debut of linked stories that follow the members and retinue of a wealthy Mexican family forced into exile after the patriarch is kidnapped.

On an unremarkable night, José Victoriano Arteaga—the head of a thriving Mexico City family—vanishes on his way home from work. The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico’s vast and desperate underworld, a place of rampant violence and kidnappings, and government corruption. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues.

Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruination fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga’s young grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga’s mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover’s return; in Austin, the Arteagas’ housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating and demeaning new land; in Madrid, Arteaga’s son takes his ailing dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father’s ghost.

Multiple award-winning author Antonio Ruiz-Camacho offers an exquisite and intimate evocation of the loneliness, love, hope, and fear that can bind a family even as unspeakable violence tears it apart. “A straight-on jab to the soul” (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), Barefoot Dogs is a heartfelt elegy to the stolen innocence of every family struck by tragedy. This is urgent and vital fiction.

About this title

Review

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

About the Author

Antonio Ruiz-Camacho has worked as a journalist in Mexico, Europe, and the United States. A 2009 John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and a 2014 Dobie Paisano Fellow in Fiction, Ruiz-Camacho earned his MFA from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas at Austin. He is from Toluca, Mexico, and lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1476784965
• ISBN 13: 9781476784960
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160