In a prose that is so beautiful it is poetry, we  see the world of growing up and going somewhere  through the dust and heat of Fresno''s industrial  side and beyond: It is a boy''s coming of age in the  barrio, parochial school, attending church, public  summer school, and trying to fall out of love so he  can join in a Little League baseball team.

  His is a clarity that rings constantly through the  warmth and wry reality of these sometimes  humorous, sometimes tragic, always human remembrances.