Rita and Los Angeles, Leo Romero's first short story collection, gives life to a fascinating collection of characters: an elderly woman living in a trailer near a petroglyph site who makes it her business to educate visitors about the drawings, a young boy who falls in love with the picture of a woman on an old orange crate, and a rather unattractive single man who must make up stories of sexual encounters in order to entertain his married friends.

The western United States, with its haunting and sometimes startling landscape, also serves as an ever-present character in these stories. Rita and Los Angeles is a book about growing up and growing old, about a past that resonates with issues relevant today; most of all, it is about being an outsider in an alien and sometimes hostile world.