Reading through one's short stories is like pressing MRI images up against a backlit screen, then stepping back and trying to figure out what was going on in the writer's mind when he wrote them. Surely partially something that was happening below consciousness. But largely to give the explanations my parents and others could not give. Like holocaust, war, family deaths. Rich images and unusual stories about the Mexico I went to live in. Revolution, love, loss, sadness, joy, striking events in Mexican and California history. My relationship with the past, and with the crimes I did not commit yet still feel haunted by.