Life in pieces, like sugar

Sunday.
An empty street.
Two young brothers dressed as Zorro and Davy Crockett are waiting for the bus that will take them off to the Alamo to fight. And maybe die.
But the bus doesn’t run on Sundays.
So begins their wild journey aboard a green Lada, joined by a star-crossed clown and a shark-obsessed poet-boxer. Together, these unlikely companions travel from France to the Balkans, and from Istanbul to New York City, Flagstaff, Dallas and Junction.
Meanwhile in San Ridero, Mexico, at a brothel lit by a thousand pink light bulbs, little Esperanza plays the night away on an out-of-tune piano. For years, an old man has been listening to every note as he chews away at his silent, painful memories. No one knows his name or how old he is. Around here, they call him Old Zorro.
A child’s life, a hero’s life, a brother’s life, a visionary’s life, a clown’s life, an eccentric’s life. This is a book about the inescapable fragmentation of existence and its bric-a-brac assortment of joys, sorrows and mellow moments of observation. Bringing the story to vivid life, Ward Ivan Rafik’s photographs are an inventory of the sacred objects of childhood—each one a precious treasure, a precious presence; each one nestled in the pockets and hands of the story’s heroes and scattered throughout the pages of this illustrated novel.
A pencil sharpener. A hazelnut. A sticky hand. A stamp. A birthday candle. These are just a few of the objects along for the ride in The Knickknack Heroes.