Home “Always at the brink of disappearing into the blue of the sky. Destined to become nothing from the moment they are something. The clouds.” Such translucent lyrics can be found written on toilet paper throughout Gonzales and Daughter Trucking Co. This “Road Novel with Literary License” by Maria Amparo Escandon shows readers through fictional first-person accounts from dilapidated books, gossip from truckers on the road and on rolls of toilet paper turned notebook of how a young woman ended up in Mexicali Penal Institution for Women. Escandon compares the women in this institution with the nature of clouds, these women who have been born into a life of circumstance, their paths written before they were born -- written by culture and family history. Their past is their enemy and their opportunities are slim. Life for them is about negotiations, survival, family and loss. A daughter of a fugitive Mexican professor turned trucker, who grows up on the road, sheltered by her federally fearing father. She has been named several times. Finally choosing for herself the name Libertad, meaning freedom, ironically after she lands in prison. Escandon takes us through this novel with imaginative and powerful means of storytelling. First and foremost the story is told through Libertad in the library club she started by accident—subconsciously knowing that this would allow her to confront the horrors of her life leading to this point while not subjecting herself to the vulnerability she would encounter from her fellow antagonizing inmates. “She wondered if her thoughts were getting tangled with the plot. It happened to her sometimes. [ ] By the time she looked up, a small group of inmates had gathered…” And so her story began. Also telling the story are the truckers on the road with gossip through the CB radio—giving a humorous point of view from an outside