This is one of my all-time favorite quick funny reads, a book that my husband, 12yo son, and I read in bed together. Why on earth has it gone out of print? It deserves to appear in storefront windows next to a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
It's an affectionate spoof of the residents of San Francisco Mission District, focusing on the intertwining lives of three families. At the hub of the story is Delfina Varela, who sells her soul to the devil in exchange for begging for a new Cadillac so she can visit her hermana in the valley. What she gets is 'a used Chevy (a sports car with about 25 miles on it) that comes with a dying petty criminal whom she tries to cure of his mortal bleeding wounds by offering him an enema.
Buy it used, read it, and laugh, laugh, laugh. Then go to the Mission and have a tamale, toasting Delfina with a Dos Equis.