Short Dog: Cab Driver Stories from the L. A. Streets

. . . A running commentary on the truth behind Los Angeles's gleaming facade—a life of brief encounters, desperation, addiction, and the chasm-sized distance between people—SHORT DOG digs into the dark landscape of the real America. In eight brutally honest short stories, Dan Fante takes the traditional cab driver "knowledge" to a deeper place, fueled by raw emotion, wine-guzzling existentialism and fleetingly hopeful epiphanies. Here the City of Angels' halo has definitely slipped.