This Time Tomorrow

The struggling Mexican-American families depicted in Jaime-Becerra’s debut will strike a chord with readers, but the intermittently moving narrative too often gets stuck in the spin cycle. Since his wife left him, Gilbert Gaeta has been supporting his 13-year-old daughter, Ana, with night shifts at a local dairy. Though he can barely pay his mortgage, he dreams of saving up to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Joyce, so she’ll move out of her father’s house and in with him. But when Ana starts to complain about being bullied at the Laundromat, Gaeta must choose between his dreams and buying Ana the washer and dryer she wants. Meanwhile, Joyce looks after her controlling father and secretly plans to sell her beloved purse collection so she and Gaeta can start their life together on solid ground. Despite its 1988 setting, Gaeta and Joyce’s struggles feel current, and their working-class lives solidly lived, though Joyce’s sections suffer from the absence of well-rounded characters and her clunkily handled devotion to her purses. It’s a decent enough first book, but nothing about it really stands out. (Feb.)