A town in the Argentine pampas—crossed by railroad tracks and inhabited by gauchos, mestizos, and Italian immigrants and their descendants—is the setting for this set of stories that lie halfway between the chronicle and the tale. The narrations range from the intimate to the collective and from the comic to the serious, often accompanied by humor but also by sharp commentary on inequality, racism, and discrimination.

These stories contain an internal dynamic that resonates beyond limiting geography, time, or culture.