I was born or given to the light, as the largely Hispanic townspeople would say, in the impoverished desert municipality of Barstow, California. My mother, Ruth, was young and inexperienced; her marriage was already flaking away. I was her practice child, and she did things with me that in retrospect, she said, horrified her, although […]

Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/09/04/desert-visions-flamingos/