"The best kind of coming-of-age tale, one full of peril and heroism and young love.... A flawless snapshot of a time and a place worth remembering." -Steve Brewer, author of Trouble Town

Gil Wheeler has one thing on his mind: making enough money to land his own motorcycle. Maybe even a girlfriend. Between selling papers and hawking rings, he dreams of adventure and exploration beyond the expanding edge of post-war Albuquerque. Together, Gil and his friends navigate their just-built junior high and the desert landscape beyond their neighborhood - a new suburb that, much like their young lives, is brimming with both fresh possibility and the promise that not all dreams will come true.

These interconnected short stories "delight the reader with their minimalist precision, their eccentric humor, and the off-the-wall details of their no-bull realism" (V. B. Price) and "capture boom-town Albuquerque in its first explosion" (Enrique Lamadrid).