Julio ("Chino") Mercado, the narrator of Ernesto Quinonez's fine debut novel, Bodega Dreams (Vintage Books; 213 pages, $12), knows the projects of Spanish Harlem in New York City. So he also knows that the best way to survive them is to get out. He and his pregnant wife Blanca are putting themselves through college at night. Their goals are the usual ones: to get nice jobs, to buy a house.
Willie Bodega's dreams are more ambitious and outrageous. A drug lord who uses profits from the trade to renovate condemned apartment buildings, finance scholarships and provide seed money for business ventures,...
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