Armed
with the belief that the less you think, the less
you'll feel, Sandy Walker, a Los Angeles public
defender in juvenile court, has long insulated
herself against the hopelessness and tawdriness
of her job with heavy doses of brandy and unsafe
sex. But her defensive wall begins to crumble
in the jungle heat of El Niño,
a feverishly tropical weather condition melting
L.A., and she is wearied further by her growing
sense of futility with a caseload that requires
her to succor a score of pederasts and sodomizers.
Sandy can no more stop crazy Nadra Taylor from
committing suicide than she can serve as surrogate
mother to 12-year-old Malver Lopez, in whose eyes
she sees the specters of her own abused childhood.
Driven deeper and deeper into a surreal, nightmarish
realm, she seeks redemption in the form of Jesus
Velaria, a man unjustly accused of molesting his
daughter, and whose life seems to converge inexorably
with her own. But one wonders if he will be too
late. |