Martin lives amid the dust of the Mexican desert. His community is a group of homesteaders so removed from the rest of society that their settlement doesn′t even have a name. This is a place that is economically and spiritually impoverished. Martin lives in the shadow of his absent father, and with the guilt of his infant brother′s death weighing upon him. And so he heads back to Mexico City armed with his father′s phone number, determined to make a new, better life for himself. The road, though, is fraught with dangers and obstacles: Martin is robbed, must live in a homeless shelter and gets involved with a woman who is as damaged as he is. Unable to locate his father or make a living in the city, he′s forced to return home, and to an inevitable collision with tragedy. Benet′s debut has a palpably gritty and barren texture, and unfolds as languidly as life in the desert does. He doesn′t supply any answers, only the promise that history is, sadly, likely to repeat itself.