Places left unfinished at the time of creation

"In this memoir, Santos brings to life the sweeping saga of his own family and that of the Mexican people."--BOOK JACKET.

"The tale unfolds through a pageant of unforgettable family figures: from Madrina - touched with epilepsy and prophecy ever since, as a girl, she saw a dying soul leave its body - to Teofilo, who was kidnapped as an infant and raised by the Kikapu Indians of northern Mexico.

We travel with Santos as he searches for his ancestors' roots in San Antonio, Texas, throughout Mexico, where he retraces the route Hernan Cortes took as he conquered the country, and finally the roads that led his family out of the old country and into the new."--BOOK JACKET. "Part treasury of the elders, part elegy, part personal odyssey, part Book of the Dead, its stories are of a fragile family lineage that spans geographies and centuries."--BOOK JACKET.