This War Called Love: Nine Stories

This War Called Love is the second collection of stories by American Book Award-winner Alejandro Murgu!a (Southern Front). Young Reymundo's idyllic life in 1950s Mexico City is interrupted by one tragedy after another in the richly detailed ""Boy on a Wooden Horse."" Although the eight subsequent stories don't quite measure up to this one, there are a few gems. In ""Ofrendas,"" Reymundo is older, living in San Francisco's Mission District, mourning a lost friend on the Day of the Dead. The darkly humorous ""Barrio Lotto,"" in which a bus driver and his psychic wife struggle to stay afloat financially, features an ending worthy of Roald Dahl. (June)