The Low Road

by Chris Womersley

Unflinching, relentless, and powerfully written, The Low Road paints a searing portrait of two desperate men thrown together by chance as they both try to flee their troubled pasts. This savage noir surprises and grips at every turn. Young petty criminal Lee wakes up in a seedy motel with a bullet in his side, a suitcase of stolen money, and only a hazy idea of how he got there. Wild, a drug-addicted doctor also taking refuge at the motel, is forced by the proprietor to save Lee's life--and move him out before the police show up. Connected by this twist of fate, the two strangers go on the lam, becoming the wariest of traveling companions. As the two men reflect on how they arrived at this point in their lives, the past pursues them in the form of an aging gangster determined to retrieve Lee's suitcase of money--and punish him for the theft. Award-winning and critically acclaimed, The Low Road seduces readers with its poetic language and unique and indelible protagonists.

Genres: Australia, Crime, Audiobook, Thriller, Fiction, Noir, Literature

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Chris Womersley (born 1968 in Melbourne, Victoria) is an Australian author of crime fiction, short stories and poetry. He trained as a radio journalist and has travelled extensively to such places as India, South-East Asia, South America, North America, and West Africa.[1] He currently lives in Melbourne, VIC.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: Australia; modern day.
Former G.P. Wild goes on the run on the day his manslaughter trial is due to commence and lands up in a seedy suburban motel. Here, landlady Sylvia interrupts his stay and forces him to tend to a young man who has been dumped at the motel with a gunshot wound. The young man, Lee, has a suitcase with him containing several thousand dollars - and someone wants it back. Wild and Lee then set out on a road trip to an isolated rural community where Wild's former mentor lives and where Wild promises Lee he will get proper medical attention - but things don't go exactly to plan! Meanwhile, Josef is sent in pursuit of Lee and the money.....
This was quite a dark story featuring characters from the seedy underbelly of Australian society - although, to be honest, it could have been anywhere (the prison and railroad scenes could easily have been in America). Despite their obvious flaws, the author manages to glean the reader's empathy towards the main characters - or at least does so until the final stage of the book which features a graphic, horrific and, in my view unnecessary in the context of the book, scene of animal cruelty that was really difficult to read and brought my rating down a full star. This is the Australian author's first novel - I have read and enjoyed a couple more of his books since so am glad I didn't read this one first as I would probably not have read any more because of this ending! - 6.5/10.

[Raven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Womersley’s previous UK release ‘Bereft’ was easily one of my favourite literary fiction reads of the last year, with its beautiful prose and thought provoking examination of human relationships, so I am delighted that Quercus have released this, originally published in Australia in 2007, to bolster his recognition here in the UK. A prizewinning and stylish noir thriller, ‘The Low Road’, transcends the crime thriller genre and is a sublime example of literary crime fiction, defined by its lyrical quality and its power to manipulate our empathy towards the three essentially criminal protagonists.

Opening within the confines of a rundown motel in an unnamed location, Lee is seeking sanctuary after making off with a suitcase stuffed with cash, having received a bullet wound in the course of his actions. Wild, a disgraced medical practitioner with a reliance on drugs is also holed up there, having deserted his marital home, after his malpractice has come to light. Through the machinations of brassy motel owner, Sylvia, the men enter each others lives, and having found out that Lee is being pursued by the sinister Josef, to recover the contents of the suitcase, the two go on the run together, as Lee tries to reach what he perceives to be the relative safety of his sister’s home. As Lee’s physical condition deteriorates, Wild endeavours to seek out an old medical colleague of his to attend to Lee but fate has more in store for them than they could possibly imagine…

As their journey propels them further into danger, herein lies the mastery of Womersley’s writing, and his innate ability to twist our preconceptions of the character’s criminal activities. As the relationship between Lee and Wild progresses, you find your empathy aroused despite your initial impressions, and as Womersley unveils the layers to their essentially damaged personas, he carefully constructs a poignant and thoughtful examination of a relationship forged by the necessity of escape and redemption. As they overcome their mutual distrust of each other and strengthen their bond, fuelled by the pursuance by Josef, who himself is an incredibly interesting character working at the behest of others, Womersley draws us into their strengths and failings, through his sublime prose and dialogue that immerses us completely in the very human weaknesses of this triumvirate. Equally, Womersley highlights the sense of survival that can arise in the bleakest of circumstances, and conversely, how this bleakness can extinguish hope in others, as events overtake our three to a heartwrenching denouement.

Womersley is to my mind, an exceptional writer, with comparisons to Jim Crace or Ron Rash, with his fluidity of prose and his use of imagery. Every scene is so easy to conjure up in the reader’s imagination, and he imbues the novel with a sense of unease, through every change of location. The world ticks on around the characters, but the situation they find themselves in is suffocating with tension, despite their efforts to escape and totally immerses the reader in their trials. This is a sublime and perfectly constructed literary crime thriller that I hope many among you will discover for yourselves.

[Any Length]

No stars at all. And deliberately so.
Don't bother reading this book. It is not worth it.
And I will make a point of avoiding this author in the future. There are people who can write a good book without resorting to cruelty to animals as entertainment. I'd rather read their books any day.

Spoiler allert!

I had just rejected two other books for being boring and for cruelty to animal content, so I thought I'd hang in there with this book till the end. And up until the last chapter it was kind of bearable. Even though it let itself down in the "believable factor".
(i.e. someone who has just lost buckets of blood and had a bullet scraped out of his ribs under less than sanitary conditions, without a proper anesthetic, and hasn't eaten more than a bowl of veggie soup in days, suddenly digging huge wholes in the ground during freezing cold temperatures and a snow storm.
I think the author has little experience in digging holes or he wouldn't have come up with such a hair brain plot.)

However, the author showed very bad taste and little imagination when he went totally berserk at the end of this book and included a totally unbelievable(again, the guy has no strength but kills a horse in the way described? - pull the other one), yet very cruel scene of killing a horse.
Anyone who needs to portray such a scene in a book ought to get an appointment with a head doctor.

NOTE ALL AUTHORS: CRUELTY TO ANIMALS IN BOOKS IS NOT ENTERTAINING!!!!!!!

And I will deduct stars and give you a bad review if you insist on using cruelty to animals to adorn your books.

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though the setting is never mentioned, you could be mistaken into thinking you were in the south of the US, when surely it is Australia (the give away after the seedy motel opening is the occasional mention of Test cricket). But this reads just as well as many of the classic gritty southern US novels, and incredibly, is a debut. It features (chiefly) two troubled characters each with a dark secret who bump into each other at the motel; Lee, a young lawbreaker who has served time, broken his parole and is badly injured after a piece of his debt recovery work goes wrong, and Wild, a morphine-addicted medical doctor leaving behind his murky past.
The skill is in mix of the writing, with elements of a thriller, and the background of suburbia and rural space, inviting comparisons with Cormac McCarthy and other greats. Perhaps its a little longer than it needs to be, but there is an admirable darkness and some very hard-hitting scenes. I'm keen to explore what else Womersley has written.

[Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know how I managed to finish this book, ....... by skipping chapters, that's how. It was so boring and sooooo slow. If a book doesn't grab me by the first few pages, then it is not worth persisting. As for the other reviews where they say it is so well written, well just because the author uses a lot of descriptive words, that doesn't necessarily mean it was well written?

[Jane]

There is noting bad about Womersley's writing - in fact, it's largely pretty great, and the book is certainly gripping. The characters are largely believable, the plot turns surprising, the pacing strong. There was no faked happy ending, which I think is good. I just hated the things that happened in it. I especially hated the last scene, a lot, to the point where I had to skip over it. I never really considered myself particularly sensitive, but this was just too much. I guess I just don't want to know about lives like this. They terrify me.

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't finish this bleak murder mystery mainly because it was just too black and depressing. I also found the writing contrived and rather overwrought. Example: Her moist eyelids opened then closed ponderously like sea anenome! Really!?

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleak, stark, pitiless, violent, hypnotic and strangely satisfying was my immediate reaction to THE LOW ROAD, and interestingly it's staying with me for quite a while after I've finished it. Mind you, THE LOW ROAD is not by any means an easy or enjoyable book.

Bleak - well the landscape in which the book takes place could be any dirty, grimy, lost city and the despairing suburbs. In fact it's very very hard to tell where the book is actually set until very late in the finale, so it could be New York, Stockholm, Sydney, anywhere really. Not only is the landscape bleak, the characterisations are bleak - there's nobody much in this book who, on first reading, seems much like anybody you'd want to know. Lee's just another pathetic little gangster - shot in the process of pinching something that doesn't belong to him - who could possibly care what happens to him. Wild is a drug-addicted, suspended General Practitioner - self-loathing and self-justification in equal parts.

Stark in that there's an honesty to these characterisations that is searing - everybody's stripped back to the bare essentials of who they are.

Pitiless in that Womersley lays out the stories of these characters without asking for understanding, pity, sympathy or acceptance for who they are or the situation they are in - and yet....

Violence is implicit in most of the moves that the 3 characters make - they intimidate, kill, demand their way ahead to their ultimate goals. Even in attempting kindness there is a violence in their approach which is startling and very confronting.

Hypnotic in that despite all of the previous components you just can't put THE LOW ROAD down.

Strangely satisfying in that the main characters slowly reveal their human frailities and you can't help but feel a connection - despite their intrinsic awfulness - to people who have placed themselves into their respective positions, but perhaps, just perhaps, there's reasons why we all do what we do.

[Óscar Brox · Rating 4 out of 5]

El fatalismo forma parte del código genético de la literatura negra; es ese veneno para el que no se conoce antídoto y el último escollo contra el que choca cualquier posibilidad de ser libre. Lo que tiene que salir mal, sale mal. Chris Womersley entiende el noir como una especie de impasse: como el relámpago antes de la tormenta o como ese momento en blanco tras el puñetazo que te deja grogui. Puedes correr, puedes pelear por conservar tu vida, pero nunca consigues esconderte de tu destino. Por mal camino, la novela que publica Es Pop, cumple las líneas maestras de esa comparación: encerrados entre los límites geográficos de un paisaje desolador de Australia, tres hombres agotan su tiempo y sus fuerzas conscientes de lo poco que les queda para ajustar cuentas con su destino.

Lee y Wild, los personajes centrales del relato, son dos perdedores abocados a la delincuencia de poca monta y la inevitable marginalidad. Han destrozado a conciencia sus vidas y ahora solo pueden aspirar al sueño de los paraísos artificiales, sean estos los de la morfina o los que produce un eventual pelotazo económico. Poco más. El resto es sobrevivir en un entorno que los asfixia con la suavidad de una muerte lenta. Womersley traslada a cada palabra la precisión y la poesía, el ambiente sucio y destartalado y ese sentimiento de compasión que no puede dejar de guardar hacia lo más execrable de la sociedad. En el fondo, nos dice, hay algo tan genuinamente humano en esa huida desesperada y fallida, que resulta imposible no apiadarse de este par de desgraciados. Por eso se entrega a una narración apasionada de cada episodio de su vida mientras los dos protagonistas tratan de culminar el último viaje.

A Lee le han disparado una bala en el estómago, en esa parte del abdomen en la que se concentran la mayoría de órganos vitales. Wild, simplemente, sigue la inercia de la droga y el recorrido que aquella traza por las venas de su brazo. Son hombres marcados, con un maletín con poco dinero y esa urgencia que nubla cualquier respuesta lógica. Lee se desangra y Wild piensa que su mejor alternativa es llevarle hasta un médico rural que ataño fue su único amigo. Wild se consume y Lee siente algo insólito, un cariño que borra parcialmente su manual de supervivencia, su facilidad para descerrajarle una bala y eliminar su rastro en mitad del desierto australiano. En otras circunstancias, tal vez, serían amigos. En esta son los eslabones finales de la misma cadena, el vínculo débil que todavía les une a un mundo que los detesta.

En Por mal camino siempre queda un mal sabor de boca, la impresión de que uno se hunde en las arenas movedizas y es verdaderamente desagradable contemplar cómo resiste, tonta y humanamente, hasta perder el aliento. Frente a la caza al hombre que desencadena la escapada de Lee con el maletín, la sombra del sicario que lo persigue. Josef, otro animal herido, casi derrotado, sin convicciones ni moral; una criatura que reacciona por puro instinto de supervivencia. Cómo se crece Womersley cada vez que revisa el pasado de sus personajes, todo ese dolor condensado en huellas tan imborrables como las del tatuaje de Josef, toda esa violencia que ha acabado con cualquier cosa. Qué terrible el pasaje en el que el sicario, vagamente enamorado de la vieja prostituta a la que conoce desde hace años, no puede faltar a su metodología y la asesina.

Sí, el fatalismo ahoga con la misma precisión que una soga atada alrededor del cuello. Precipita pequeños raptos de violencia y capítulos de un patetismo rayano en la ternura: he ahí esa imagen de Wild robando suministros de morfina que le provean de aquello que la realidad ha olvidado: otra realidad. En Por mal camino, el fatalismo describe un paisaje verdaderamente crudo, tan helado como la nevada que encierra en un viejo caserón a sus personajes. Alguien puede pensar que pelear contra el destino es un absurdo, sobre todo si tu botín ni siquiera da para empezar algo. Solo te garantiza la seguridad durante unos pocos meses. Lo hermoso de esta novela es el tremendo empeño con el que describe ese imposible, ese deseo enloquecido por no morir y cómo, a pesar de ello, sus fuerzas se apagan a toda velocidad; como un campeón al borde del KO, un plusmarquista desfondado a pocos metros de la meta o un coche sin gasolina en mitad de la nada. Lee, Wild y Josef ilustran ese momento de estar a punto de lograrlo para terminar hundiéndose con todavía más violencia.

Quien se acerque a Por mal camino nunca olvidará la angustia de sus últimas páginas, esa imagen prestada del puro absurdo en la que un delincuente moribundo trata de escapar del infierno a lomos de una yegua exhausta. No lo conseguirá, porque en la serie negra nadie consigue lo que se propone, salvo aplazar unas cuantas páginas más su estertor definitivo. El mérito de Womersley consiste en saber aplacar la violencia inmisericorde del panorama con una compasión humana pocas veces tan delicada. Esa que recuerda a los hombres que fueron y que nunca llegaron a ser; la misma que nos habla del miedo, de la pasta que estamos hechos y de cómo, aun aterrados, nos agarramos al débil sueño de que, esta vez sí, saldremos adelante. Y eso mismo sucede cuando la novela alcanza su final: que soñamos, quién sabe, para no volver a despertarnos en el mundo que hemos pisado durante las anteriores hojas. Ese en el que nunca puedes esconderte.

Publicado en Détour

[Daniel Polansky]

I read this book.

[Londogma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so pissed about how this book ended. The last scene of the horse being beaten left such a horrid taste in my mouth; it honestly ruined the entire thing for me.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bleak novel about ex-con Lee, who has stolen a bag full of money and been shot in the process. He lands at a seedy hotel where disgraced doctor Wild is also staying, whom the motel owner browbeats into looking after Lee.

Wild and Lee leave and go on the run, each from his own demons. They find themselves in a downward spiral of increased desperation. Meanwhile, the implacable Josef is told to hunt Lee down and retrieve the money.

Womersley writes really well but the pace of this novel drags for most of it. It picks up a bit in the final act, which redeems it somewhat, but overall I found this a very dark story, maybe in the vein of Cormac McCarthy.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such beautiful language in this book to describe such a motley crew of characters. I found myself waiting for the adjectives and adverbs, they were breathtaking.

It took me a while to come at the ending, but I see now that he had to lose his humanity one he'd given up his possible salvation. Not the best chapter for a bed time read! I knew this was going to be s favourite book half way through.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gritty, sad and shocking read. Compelling language is used to - at times delightfully - describe the characters’ flaws which are central to the story

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Low Road” is what happens when a novel confuses bleakness with brilliance and then doubles down by moving at the speed of an arthritic sloth dragging a corpse through wet cement. Womersley clearly set out to write something dark and brooding, the literary equivalent of a man sighing deeply in a dimly lit bar, but instead delivers a story so dense and self-serious it practically collapses under its own portentous weight. If Cormac McCarthy at his peak was a bottle of top-shelf whiskey, this is the watery dregs of a flat, overpriced pint at a dodgy pub where the jukebox is stuck on repeat.

The premise – two unlikeable men on the run – suggests a thriller, but let’s not get carried away. The tension here is non-existent, suffocated under layer upon layer of overwrought prose that reads like it was workshopped by a committee of thesauruses. I have no problem with stories full of doomed men making bad decisions, but they do need to be at least vaguely compelling. Instead, we’re given characters so devoid of depth they might as well be cardboard cutouts from the Generic Noir Tragedy section of the bookstore. There’s the tortured protagonist, the dubious sidekick, and a supporting cast that could have been assembled from the contents of a particularly lazy detective show cliché bin.

Even the most disturbing moments – the parts that should make your stomach churn – are drowned in tedious, meandering descriptions. You’d think with all this misery something might happen, but alas, “The Low Road” has all the momentum of a deflated balloon. There’s running, there’s violence, there’s pain, but none of it means anything because there’s no reason to care. I can get behind unlikeable protagonists, but I draw the line at being expected to watch them sulk and flounder for 300 pages like a couple of moody teenagers who just discovered existentialism and cheap speed.

It’s clear Womersley wants to make a Point – something profound about human suffering and the inexorable pull of fate – but that gets lost somewhere between the bloated prose and the lack of anything resembling narrative propulsion. I’m all for grit, but there’s a difference between gritty and grinding. The former gives you something raw and memorable. The latter is just tedious. This is the latter.

⭐ ⭐

[Gretchen Bernet-Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want a grim story with a harsh, raw outlook on life? Something akin to a Greek tragedy or rabid dog bite? Then trek no further than Womersley’s low road to despair; but do so at your own peril. This accomplished brave and brutal tale took me down paths I have never travelled although maybe superficially glimpsed from a bus passing through a rundown town. The three initial characters, Lee an ex-con, Dr Wild de-registered, and motel owner Sylvia are expertly portrayed and despite the bleak setting they became hypnotic. Other more chilling characters are added and it was hard for me to tear my eyes away so I kept reading. Anyway, defectors Lee and Wild go on the run with a lot of unaccountable money. Off and on they meet and cause disasters on this stomach-churning one-way road trip to the Badlands. I hit a blip with neutralising words like ‘field’ instead of ‘paddock’ and ‘gallons’ instead of ‘litres’ but eventually maybe Australia will own up to its difference. Be prepared for minutia when it comes to descriptions although this did enhance what my inner eye created for my reader brain. So much better than that film-scripty prose. There is symbolism at the end which seems to have escaped some readers. This is a not-nice crime novel as opposed to Richard Osman’s very-nice crime novels. Shake it up, read something so good at its genre you can hardly bear to read it.

[Tanya Hunter-Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The synopsis for this book had me intrigued - it sounded exactly the type of book I usually love to read. But unfortunately that’s as far as it went. The chapters are written in the viewpoint of each character, which I usually like, but the tone of each character was so vastly different that it was hard to keep track. For me, I really didn’t like the absence of quotation marks around the speech either. I found myself clinging on to the character, Lee. Throughout the book I felt he was a young man who had had an awful beginning, had gone astray and he would eventually find his way back - I was really rooting for him! Imagine my huge disappointment when towards the end, he turned out to be a cold blooded killer, with murders that were completely unnecessary. Instant dislike for him at that point. Whilst at times it was a gripping read, this one wasn’t for me.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Australian author Chris Womersley released his debut novel. The Low Road back in 2007. A dark gritty, crime tale, it’s the story of two men forced together, both fleeing the consequences of their past. Lee is a twenty-four-year-old man who has spent time in prison and got involved with a criminal gang. Wild is a suspended doctor and bail jumper on the run. They meet at a shady motel, when Wild is asked to assist Lee with his gunshot wound. They undertake a road trip across the desolate plains, avoiding several attempts to capture them. Joseph is in pursuit of Lee for taking a suitcase of money his boss wants back. It’s a murky, almost apocalyptic-toned read with flawed protagonists and atmospheric narrative that is a three stars rating. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without inducement.

[Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books is completely such a detective-crime book! and i loved it! Wild, Lee, Josef (the characters i guess) they make me insane and my imagination beyond how it has been written. Even though the conversations were not using these marks (“) but i can understand it after a while reading it. This is such a great books like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot but this book used some metaphor and Chris wrote the best words he used to made this book completely amazing!
Well done Chris, i do really like this book ❤️

[Book Grocer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchase The Low Road here for just $10!

An award winning debut novel from a great Australian writer. With its beautiful prose and thought provoking examination of human relationships, at times, bleak but hard to put down, this one is sure to become an Australian classic.

Kelly - The Book Grocer

[Kỳ Lân · Rating 2 out of 5]

- Mình có được cuốn sách này qua một lần trao đổi sách với một mọt be bé. Sách này được NXB giới thiệu là tủ sách văn học Úc, là tiểu thuyết hay của văn học Úc năm 2008.
- Tuy nhiên, khi đọc xong mình không có thiện cảm lắm. Tình tiết ít lôi cuốn, cốt truyện tương đối đơn giản, giá trị để lại theo mình cảm nhận không nhiều.

[Sandra Norsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good moments, especially between the two main characters. The plot was a bit wandery and uneven, but still a worthwhile read. I enjoyed Womersley's voice throughout, and he does create interesting characters.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

T he Low Road seemed to me to be a metaphor for rock bottom, hopeless, no where to go after a lot of bad choices. The characterisation strong and the ending puzzling. It was a hard and unrepentant tale.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the most distressing, disturbing and powerful books I have read. I hope I can forget it very quickly but fear the horse will never leave me, just like the cruelty to Black Beauty never has. I would like to give it no stars but Chris Womersley is a writer who will not be ignored.

[Shirley Metelmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keeps you on the edge of the seat
Could not put it down

[Delcene Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed after reading Bereft...a bit light on this one I’m afraid.

[Mike Taverner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not many books are so worthless - totally not worth reading of publishing. Thoroughly unlikeable in every way

[Shane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, that was a mistake. Part 4 was utterly horrendous. The single worst ending of a book I have ever finished.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 to 3
The last scene harrowing and unnecessary. Very disturbed but there was so much tedious detail in so many places

[Minh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Không ấn tượng mấy :v