The Mystery of Grace

On the Day of the Dead, Altagracia Quintero meets John Burns at the Solona Music Hall—two weeks too late. Grace, as her friends call her, works at Sanchez Motorworks customizing hot rods, with tattoos of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia and a Ford Motor Company design marking her body. Grease is permanently worked into her hands from her calling: finding the line in a classic car. Grace's world centers on a few blocks around the Alverson Arms—a grocery store, record shop, and library where Henry, a black man in a wheelchair, researches the mystery of life in death. Grace and John love each other, but both carry unfinished business. John has never stopped feeling responsible for his younger brother's childhood death. As an artist like Grace, John must learn alongside her about life, love, hot rods, and Elvis Presley, and about the necessity of letting some things go.