The year is 1978. Ares Ramirez, age 12, lives with his
mother, Laurel, and his younger brother Malcolm in a trailer
at the edge of the Salton Sea, an unintentionally man-made
body of water in the middle of the Southern California
desert. It is a desolate, forgotten place, whose inhabitants
thrive amidst seemingly impossible circumstances.
Where
birds fly by day across the desert sky, by night government
fighter planes and helicopters make training runs using live
ammunition, and an anonymous dead body floats in from the
sea. These events inspire Ares, on the cusp of his
adolescence, to enact elaborate fantasies of mortal combat.
His membership in a troubled family marks Ares as a casualty
of a different kind of war. Malcolm, age 7, is mentally
handicapped, and his mother chooses not to do anything about
it.
Ares' struggle with the burden of responsibility --
to himself and to others -- draws him into a world of drugs,
violence, and sex that he is not prepared for, launching him
into a very personal battle for his own identity, one that
has a lethal outcome.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy