Totally unsentimental this is nonetheless an exceptionally moving story that is full of insight and written with a rare tenderness. Two boys in desperate situations come together one summer in St Anthony’s Home. Pancho’s one ambition is track down and kill his sister’s murderer. But his plans are changed when he is made carer for a boy dying of brain cancer. D.Q certainly makes the best of the life that is left to him and gradually, his positive attitude in turn effects Pancho who begins to see things differently.
When Pancho arrives at St. Anthony''s Home, he knows his time there will be short. If his plans succeed, he''ll soon be arrested for the murder of his sister''s killer. But then he''s assigned to help DQ, whose brain cancer has slowed neither his spirit nor his mouth. DQ tells Pancho all about his "Death Warrior''s Manifesto", which will help him to live out his last days fully - ideally, he says, with the love of the beautiful Marisol. As Pancho tracks down his sister''s murderer, he finds himself falling under the influence of DQ and Marisol, and beginning to understand that there''s more to life than revenge and more to death than sadness.
Francisco X. Stork was born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1953, but moved to El Paso, Texas with his adoptive father when he was nine. He attended Harvard University where he studied Latin American Literature for four years before changing courses and attending Columbia Law School. He makes his living as a lawyer working for a state agency in charge of developing affordable housing. He writes novels, working on them every day in the early morning before work and in the evenings. Novel writing is not a hobby for him. It is a duty and joy all wrapped up in one. His hope is that people, especially young people, will see in his Mexican American characters the hopes, fears, nobility, faults and limitations inherent in all people.
