e Down, Alex Z. Salinas' debut collection of short stories, the setting is mostly South Texas-and infrequently, outer space. Mothers dying or dead, brothers with a taste for revenge, bizarre coffee shop encounters, terrifying dreams, strange alien lights, embers of love blazing and cooling-in these stories, a lot happens, and sometimes not much at all. Through precise, raw, and often Christ-haunted language, Salinas builds up characters to bring them to their knees. This book: a roller coaster in the middle of the Texas desert. (Or is it just a mirage?)