Barefoot Dogs

"Profound and wrenchingA deeply moving chronicle of one family's collective devastation, full of remarkable wisdom and humor" (TheNew York Times Book Review) that follows the members of a wealthy Mexican family after their patriarch is kidnapped.

On an unremarkable night, Jose Victoriano Arteaga-the head of a thriving Mexico City family-vanishes on his way home from work. The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico's vast underworld. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues.

Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruin fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga's grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga's mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover's return; in Austin, the Arteagas' housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating new land; in Madrid, Arteaga's son takes his dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father's ghost.

A stunningly original exploration of the wages of a hidden war, Barefoot Dogs is a heartfelt elegy to the stolen innocence of every family struck by tragedy. Urgent and vital fiction, "these powerful stories are worthy of rereading in order to fully digest the far-reaching implications of one man's disappearancethis singular book affords the reader the chance to step inside a world of privilege and loss, and understand how the two are inextricably intertwined" (San Francisco Chronicle).

About the Author

Antonio Ruiz-Camacho has worked as a journalist in Mexico, Europe, and the United States. A 2009 John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and a 2014 Dobie Paisano Fellow in Fiction, Ruiz-Camacho earned his MFA from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas at Austin. He is from Toluca, Mexico, and lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.