Summary

In “Big Angel’s Last Saturday,” a man named Miguel “Big Angel” de la Cruz is running late to his mother’s funeral. He is frustrated that his family is running late. In “Here We Go, Pops,” Big Angel flirts with his wife, Perla, and recalls his long, slow career trajectory towards become a computer center director and cyber-systems manager. Big Angel’s daughter Minnie teases her brother Lalo for being a junkie; he teases her for smoking too much. Big Angel recalls trying to learn English, after first coming to the U.S. from Mexico then chastises himself for thinking so much about the past: “It was over. It was all over” (19).

The novel shifts to Minnie’s perspective. Minnie, who has had three children, worries...