Michoacuaro, the evening of September 18, 1985. The man whom Mexican friends will call Jorge unloads his car, drinks a cold beer, another, and falls asleep early.
He wakes before the sun. Washes, boils water for coffee—
The world shakes. Walls sway, graceful, mysterious. For more than three minutes.
He runs to the rooftop patio. People, on the street, in the plaza. On the cathedral dome the clock has stopped at 7:19.
It will remain 7:19 all year.
*
Jorge, a criminologist who divides his teaching time between Montreal and Boston, has arrived in Mexico at the moment of the great earthquake that destroyed much of Mexico City. He is mourning the death of his wife. Northern measured time, clock time, has stopped for him. But a new world is about to open, a world where the dramatic is normal and legends become palpable reality. Over fourteen episodes, each a cohesive narrative, he becomes transformed and newly alive.
"The Underside of Stones is, literally, a wonderful book.... And the stories told to Don Jorge by the people of Michoacuaro remain long in the memory with the clear intensity of recounted miracles." —Globe & Mail