I look back, thinking that only the matte black walls, the mirrors, lights, pole, faux-velvet-and-vinyl-seats will remain the same, the atmospheric voice of the DJ a steady and placating drone. The rest in interchangeable: the bouncers, the girls, the customers. And it seems we're all the same person coming from work with money meant for better things; coming from a job we lost, wishing that the next one lasts long enough to get us by; coming from nowhere only to follow someone who needs something from us into a room where we hope they at least turn on the light before closing us in.

In this collection of stories by Navajo author Bojan Louis people struggle to get by. They struggle to find a future and do their job and get paid what they are owed. Set in and around Flagstaff, Arizona, these characters all exist as outsiders on the margins of society. In Trickster Gods a young man who is trying to remain sober waits for his girlfriend to finish partying. In Volcano, another young man lives in a motel room with his cousin's son, a boy with Downs Syndrome, while trying to keep his job as an underpaid electrician. In Usefulness an ex-convict finds that the job he was hired to do is different from the one he ends up doing. In each of the stories, the characters fight against their pasts and against the circumstances they find themselves in. This is gritty, life on the edges stuff and hope comes hard in these sharply-written stories. ( )