Halfway through Mexican author Elena Garro’s debut novel, Los recuerdos del porvenir, time stops dead. I don’t mean in some metaphorical sense, though it may feel that way due to the sudden boldness of the plot twist. No, I mean that Felipe Hurtado, the stranger who showed up in the little town of Ixtepec some weeks earlier, actually halts the passage of time so he can ride off into the proverbial sunset with Julia, the mistress of the local garrison chief.