“Proscenium of nearly identical mountain ridges, arched out and downward, one 'after' another, to the valley floor: curtains tied back, a gesture”

“Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge. ”

“I woke with a terrible headache and wobbled around 'till I fell out the window.""You what?""Fell out the window. That one over there." She [Edwina] gestured to the curtain behind her. "I broke my back. My spine is all wobbly now, but it doesn't hurt.”

“A curiosity . . . no, a need for a different kind of communion. One with people not of the mountain, but rather the outsiders of the Ridge. She couldn’t explain the call of Angel Ridge. Women before her, like her mother, had experienced the same longing, had tried to assimilate with the people below the mountain and had been cruelly rejected, returning to the mountain to live a singular existence.”

“As the track bends north-east, the ethereal sandstone disappears. The slopes turn black with granite, and the mountain's lower ridges break into unstable spikes and revetments. Their ribs are slashed in chiaroscuro, and their last outcrops pour towards the valley in the fluid, anthropomorphic shapes that pilgrims love. The spine and haunches of a massive stone beast, gazing at Kailas, are hailed as the Nandi bull, holy to Shiva; another rock has become the votive cake of Padmasambhava.”

“Behind every downward trend in society lies the church’s permission in one form or another.”