Lizard Wine

Like blood on a shard of glass, they were clinging to their lives.

They had a stripped old Pontiac wagon. They had a dollar-fifty worth of gas, a cold six-pack of beer, and a bottle of gin. One of them had a knife named Gloria, and a bloody secret in his past. Before the night was over the three young men would meet three lost young women, college students on a spree. And in the long night, in the falling snow in a remote corner of the American Northwest, they would share a deathride, each laying bare their innocence and their guilt, each putting their soul up for judgment, each committed to living or dying by the light of day.

Lizard wine is a metaphor for the unpleasant, self-defeating things we sometimes do because we think they offer a way out of life's trap. This intense, violent novel is about three female college students who meet up with three male drifters and their unfolding stories during a long, cold night in Oregon. What's remarkable is that although each character is nailed by circumstance with the bare implications of being either a man or a woman, the predator-prey roles are unpredictable, and for each person, their unique character is the ultimate determinant of their destiny.