In Tears of the Trufflepig, Mexican-born and Texas-based author Fernando A. Flores presents a futuristic borderland fiction story. A third border wall might be erected between the United States and Mexico, narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: filtered animals—species of animals brought back from extinction to amuse the very wealthy.

Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking. But his simple life gets complicated after a swashbuckling journalist invites him to an underground dinner at which filtered animals are served. Bellacosa soon finds himself in the middle of an increasingly perilous and surreal journey, in the course of which he encounters legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and their object of worship: the mysterious Trufflepig, said to possess strange powers.

Written with infectious verve, bold imagination, and oddball humor, Fernando A. Flores’s Tears of the Trufflepig is an absurdist take on life along the border, an ode to the myths of Mexican culture, and an introduction to a staggeringly smart new voice in American fiction.

I really enjoyed this mystical take on what the border might look in the future. Food also takes center stage in both the small cafe that Esteban Bellacosa visits along with the underground dinners prepared with the exotic filtered animals. Flores is an incredible writer and Tears of the Trufflepig has been hailed the past year as one of The Daily Beast's Best Summer Beach Reads, one of Lit Hub and The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of 2019, one of Buzzfeed and Tor.com's Books to Read This Spring, and one of the Chicago Review of Books' Best New Books.