"Two friends two friends, how close could they get without being one man. one in love with a ghost, the other. longed for the son whod more than likely already become a ghost." Rubén Arenal, nicknamed Rocky by his close friends and family, and Ernesto Cisneros are longtime friends, as close as brothers, living in Mexicos northern state of Chihuahua. Rubén is a potter who lives alone in his studio apartment. Ernesto is married to Guadalupe and they have one a son, Coyuco, who is training to be a teacher. Out of these bald facts spins magic. Rubén falls in love with an eerily lifelike mannequin in a shop window, widely rumored to be more flesh and bone than mere artifice and modelled on a local beauty nicknamed La Pascualita, who died young many decades ago.

Rubén trails after her ghost while Ernesto leaves their hometown to go in search of his son, kidnapped and disappeared by the police while out on a student protest with forty-two of his comrades from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College.Set in the very recent past, Thirteen Heavens is a hypnotizing tale of corrupt politics, brutal violence, and all-too-human drama. For all of its quiet brutality, the narrative is infused with an entrancing, dreamlike mix of Mexican folklore, popular song and poetry. At the novels very heart lies the porosity of the boundary between this life and the next. It is a book like no other and, once begun, it is very hard to put down. Once put down, it is very hard to forget."--.