An aspiring writing adrift in New York finds love and community at a corner empanada stand in this novel by the author of The Milagro Beanfield War.

It’s Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, when ex-patriots, artists, and colorful bums are kings. A tiny stand selling empanadas near the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal streets is the center of the action for the shy narrator, an aspiring writer just out of college. There, he falls in with a crowd of kooky outcasts from Argentina who introduce him to their raucous adventures, melodramatic dreams, and women—particularly a tough little flamenco dancer from Buenos Aires.

Charming and insightful, this deceptively simple novel is a tale told by a master. It is a wise coming-of-age story, full of joy and touched by heartbreak, that captures a special time and place with extraordinary empathy and humor.

John Nichols