The characters in The Low Desert are gangsters, murders, criminals, and those caught up in the underbelly of the brutal world of crime and broken lives. The stories maybe cringe-worthy, frightening, and sad, but Tod Goldberg finds the heart and depth of his characters, their insights and longings—though their insights and longings may be fabrications, justifications and just plain wrong, leading them to more bad choices, more death. Still we come to care about what happens to them, even as we want to step away from the pain they cause others, and themselves. Goldberg’s writing is so solid, and brave, that the stories in this book compel the reader to keep turning the page, to see how things will turn out, and to find out what these characters are driven by, and what they are driven to do, and what choices they make—because we the reader wonder, and decide, what choices we would make, how we would never find our way into these lives. And yet, none of us are perfect. All of us are at fault somehow. The Low Desert speaks to humanity, even as it shows us the immoral and unfortunate lives of these haunting, cruel and damaged characters.
