I did finish wondering what role the lone male gopher plays at the end of the story. Is he a metaphor for Mack, or Doc? And the long poems, one of them cited as a Sanskrit translation, is this connected to Mac's lonesomeness? A lost love that still resonates many years later? I appreciated Steinback's attention to detail, and he documents a time and place with lots of clarity. I felt I was there in Monterrey in the first half of the 20th century, probably a place I cannot go today.