If one aspect of their consciousness characterizes the Spanish, it is the prevailing philosophy that life is worth what it does to you. Fiestas is a collection of short stories about modern Spain, beginning with a tale of true love versus romance in the years just before the Spanish Civil War of 1936. The collection takes the reader into the Civil War and Spain's darkest and most wretched times and continues through the twentieth century, with stories of ordinary Spaniards living the fiestas of their lives—the loves, deaths, miseries, and minor triumphs of a people determined to make the most of whatever life can throw at them.