cover image Frontera Street

Frontera Street

Tanya Maria Barrientos. New American Library, $12.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-451-20635-0

Dee Paxton is 28, recently widowed and pregnant when she applies for a job at a fabric shop in the Mexican neighborhood of her West Texas town at the opening of Frontera Street by Tanya Maria Barrientos. Dee's Mexican-American co-worker, Alma, pegs Dee as a stuck-up white woman, but when Dee collapses at the store, Alma finds herself obliged to care for her for a few days. Single-mother Alma gradually warms to Dee, as Dee comes to appreciate and love the Mexican-American culture of their border town. The plot is contrived and the story slow moving, but Barrientos's genuine affection for her characters and West Texas border life shines through.