Curiously, this is depicted as Book III of a proposed "Tucson Trilogy," and while most serializations typically mandate books I and II, there is no need for that here. Simply, this is the tale of a odyssey of a man who has left the desperation and hard times of Los Angeles for the seemingly bucolic desert nights of Tucson. But what he finds here is as harsh and demeaning in its own sere way as La La was; people of meretricious nature, envy, jealousy, poverty, and the ever-eternal dance for the dollar.
The book takes us through the trial and trauma of looking for a new job, any kind of job - manual labor, delivery, warehouse man. Anything but driving a taxi, our character's previous employment back in the City of Los Angeles. He is sneered at, looked down upon and insulted in his search for a job - really a search for identity - and in the end he perseveres and lands one. A bakery gig.
Author Kirk Alex loves Bukowski and Kerouac and it shows; his prose is swiftly moving and terse and dark and angry and ugly. There is no wiggle room in what he writes and what he sees; bad is bad and good is rare. Apparently the writer has struggled a long time to get this book published, and it's a good thing he did. This will grab you by the heart and choke the breath out of you - and by book's end, you'll thank him for doing it.