<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">
Tod Goldberg's soon-to-be released <i>Other Resort Citiies</i> (Amazon says the publication date is Oct. 1, but Tod says it'll be next week) has garnered a favorable blurb from <i>Booklist.</i><div><i><br></i></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> Goldberg is director of the Palm Desert MFA program. </span></i></div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Menace and mayhem brew beneath the finely crafted surface of </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">these magnetic short stories of American mania and despair. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Goldberg draws on his crime-fiction chops (Living Dead Girl, </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2002) to portray refugees from failed attempts at middle-class </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">normalcy seeking freedom and revenge in the overdeveloped </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">deserts of the American West. Goldberg’s disgruntled </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">characters get up to no good in Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">various gated communities just begging for defilement. A </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">lonely, no-longer-young cocktail waitress struggles to </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">understand her missing Russian adopted daughter. A former </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">sheriff and cancer survivor returns to the strange, toxic, </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">devouring Salton Sea, where he lost his first wife. A man </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">converts his fancy home into a Starbucks after the </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">disappearance of his second wife, and one wonders just how </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">insane he truly is. Goldberg pulls out all the stops in </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">“Mitzvah,” a tale about an ersatz rabbi and a temple-centered </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">money- and body-laundering scheme. A divorced father kidnaps </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">his kids; a family is found slain on a mountain. These are </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">eerie, obliquely compassionate, darkly humorous, and ensnaring </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">stories of misery and catharsis. — Donna Seaman</div></blockquote><br></div><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><img src="cid:EEB78759-215A-44E7-9B7B-DCDEA188B9C9@ucr.edu"></div></blockquote><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; "><b><i>D Charles Whitney, Professor and Chair</i></b></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; ">Department of Creative Writing, 4119 INTS</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; ">U of California, Riverside CA 92521</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; ">951.827.6076 FAX 951.827.3619</span></font></div></span></div></div></body></html>