This novel, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, follows its characters in a modern world that has become more convoluted, more conflicted, more technological, yet more emotionally challenged. Albuquerque has its tourist sights - the International Balloon Festival each October, "Old Town", Sandia Peak Tramway, hot red and green chili enchiladas, sunshine most of the year and a merging of old, new, and multicultural worlds. Still, as our storyteller likes to say, "Albuquerque is icing on a cake that fell a long time ago. Ordinary lives," as his favorite blues lyrics cry out, "are hard to find, harder to keep, and ever so precious."

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