Set in California in the era of Nixon and the Vietnam war, this may be Soto's best novel to date. When 17-year-old Jesse, a Mexican-American, drops out of high school after Christmas of his senior year, he leaves home, moves in with his brother Abel, and attends junior college. Living on 90 dollars a month each from Social Security, a legacy of their dead father, the boys go to classes, form friendships, work in the fields to make money for food, and scrounge junk to sell at yard sales and swap meets. Jesse goes to church, dates, and gets minimally involved in the farm workers movement. When the semester is over, Abel is drafted; Jesse moves into a shed and contemplates his summer: "fields running for miles with cantaloupes like heads, all
