"Buckle up, doll," urges the narrator of Trace Elements, "I promise I ll try not to tangle your quinceanera dress."
So begins the adventure of Leticia Marisol Estrella Torez, who moves north to Los Angeles in an attempt to break from her past: from starched dresses and sleek, tight braids; from Nana, the traditional grandmother who raised her; and also from the seductive Weeping Womanthe siren of Mexican folklore said to fly through the skies at night to steal troublesome children and who embodies, in many ways, Leti s first love. As Leti immerses herself in the post-queer hipster...

Set amidst the outsider worlds of present-day downtown New York, 1990s Los Angeles, and 1940s Mexico City, "Like Son" is the not-so-simple story of a love-blindness shared between a father and a son. Born a bouncing baby girl named Francisca Cruz, Frank Cruz is now a post-punk thirty-year-old who has inherited his dead father's wanderlust, unrequited love, and hyperbolic tendencies.
Felicia Luna Lemus is the author of the novel "Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and her writing has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including "A Fictional...