The Low Road
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3.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Lee, a petty criminal, wakes in a seedy motel with a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolen money, his memory hazy as to how he got there. Soon he meets Wild, a doctor who is escaping his own disastrous life, and the two men set out for the safety of the countryside.
As they flee the city, they develop an uneasy intimacy, inevitably revisiting their pasts even as they seek to evade them. Lee is haunted by a brief stint in jail; Wild is on the run from the legacy of medical malpractice. But Lee and Wild are not alone: they are pursued through the increasingly gothic landscape by the ageing gangster Josef, who must retrieve the stolen money and deal with Lee to ensure his own survival. Ultimately, all three men are forced to confront the parts of themselves they sought to outrun.
Part noir thriller, part modern tale of alienation and despair, The Low Road seduces the reader into a story that unfolds and deepens hypnotically. A brilliant debut novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Near the outset of Ned Kelly Award winner Womersley's debut, his second novel to be published in the U.S. (after Bereft), Dr. Wild (aka the Junkie Doctor), abandoned by his wife and teenage daughter, not to mention his friends ("Those around him nodded sympathetically, hid their wallets and lost his phone number"), decides to leave home and hit the road. After two nights sleeping in his car, Wild reaches the outskirts of an unnamed Australian city and checks into a cheap motel. A day or two later, the manager asks him to attend to Lee, a young man dumped at the motel with a serious abdominal bullet wound. Wild does what little he can to stabilize Lee, and agrees to take him to an old doctor friend out "on the plains." Meanwhile, criminals are seeking to claim their right to the eight grand Lee has on him. Fans of literate contemporary noir will find plenty to like.
