This untitled novel is set in the fictional small town of Las Peñas in contemporary northern New Mexico. The novel centers on three characters: Amadeo Padilla, an unemployed ne’er-do-well who is part of a community of Catholic penitentes (men whose worship includes self-flagellation and physical suffering), his teenage daughter Angel, who gives birth to her first child, and his mother Yolanda, who discovers that she is dying of brain cancer. The novel spans the baby’s first year, as all three characters struggle to parent children they do not feel equipped to save.