Emigrating from Mexico to San Diego, sixty-something Osvaldo Reyes intends to find his first love, Joanne Watson, a young writer he met over thirty years ago when she toured his hometown of Oaxaca City. But when Osvaldo’s employer in the United States shuts down due to protests, the clock starts ticking on his visa. He finds work at a local fish taco shop to buy more time in the US, but doesn’t know his sweet co-worker, a Mexican-American girl, is an ICE agent in disguise.

Osvaldo ends up in an immigrant detention center where he meets Marcos Gomez, a young asylum seeker from Honduras separated from his family. Osvaldo shares his story with Marcos through a series of flashbacks interspersed by chapters from a tattered original manuscript Joanne gave him the last time they met. Slip Soul—the story within the story—is a metaphysical journey of good versus evil, toxic masculinity versus femininity, and provides the historical backdrop for Osvaldo and Joanne’s lifelong love separated by time and borders.