Unpeopled Eden opens in Mictl++n, the region of the dead in Aztec mythology, inviting us down into a world where "the men are never coming home" and "rows of ghosts come forth to sing." Haunted by border crossers and forgotten deportees, lost brothers and sons, Gonz++lez unearths the beautiful and musical amidst the grotesque. These poems are prayer and memorial "for those whose / patron saints are longing and despair.".