Unpeopled Eden opens in Mictlán, 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, González unearths the beautiful and musical amidst the grotesque. These poems are prayer and memorial "for those whose / patron saints are longing and despair."