Joe Torra's loosely connected My Ground Trilogy tells the stories of three working-class, Boston area people - each of whom is trying to crawl out from under. Gas Station is a slice of everyday life that reveals the thoughts of a boy who works more than he plays. Weathering the tedium, frustration and occasional fearsome excitement of events in his immigrant father's business with a kid's interest and an adult's sense of responsibility, the narrator puts the reader in a gritty, greasy garage that somehow relates to everyone's transition out of childhood. In the second novel, Tony Luongo is a...