The Back of a Mirror collects stories that live in the space between the ordinary and the irreversible. A classroom where the nature of reality comes undone. An office loop with no exit. A border crossing where the uncanny arrives through conversation. A duel in a small Texas town that ends, improbably, over a toasted sandwich. A dream that has been censored for years, finally told.

These are stories of Chicano families and in-between worlds, of Los Angeles and the Texas plains, of people who encounter something they cannot explain and must decide whether to name it. The explanations never come. The experiences do.

Drawing on twenty years of writing in two languages, Alex Calles brings together voices shaped by Castaneda and Hesse, by border crossings and back roads, by the stubborn pressure of the real against everything we think we know.

Reality can be broken. Most people prefer not to find out.

Nineteen chapters of honest storytelling, journaling prompts, comic strips, crossword puzzles and coloring pages. Not a self-help manual. A permission slip. By Alex Calles.

A novel by Hector A. Calles — the Spanish-language pen name of Alex Calles. Available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle digital edition.