X

HOME

Books

Authors

Blog

Events

About Us

Contact Us

Get in touch

Books

Authors

Blog

Events

About Us

Contact Us

Get in touch

We publish books that matter — narrative and literary nonfiction on important topics, and the best of local, international, and translated fiction.

NO ITEMS

LOG IN

CONTINUE BROWSING

Low Life in the High Desert

a California memoir
David Hirst

“Hirst has written a lively account of adventures to relish.” FOUR STARS

Sunday Territorian

“His descriptions of the barren, wild landscape capture its rugged beauty and begin to help us understand the attraction of such a difficult life…an amusing account of meetings with strange types.”

Felicity Price, Sunday Star Times

An Australian journalist, his girlfriend, and dog, move across the world to make the California High Desert their new home

“Hello, Mr. Lavender. I hear you have a house for sale. Boulder House?”
“I might have. That depends.”
“On what?”
“On who's asking.”
Mr Lavender explained that he was considering selling. California was really
starting to piss him off. “I'm a redneck gun-nut. I haven't killed anyone in years,
but if I want to kill someone that's my goddamn right, and I don't give a red rat's
ass what anyone says.”

This was David Hirst's first encounter with the locals of Pioneertown, deep in the California High Desert, the place that would improbably become home to him, his girlfriend, and their dog after relocating across the world. Moving into Boulder House—a huge, rambling edifice constructed from giant boulders to withstand a Russian invasion—they were hurled into a world that few ever get to experience up close. Their life in one of the last outposts of America's Wild West is recounted here with great humor and humanity.

“Hirst has written a lively account of adventures to relish.” FOUR STARS

Sunday Territorian

Buy from IndieBound

BUY EBOOK

Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 9.21in × 6.02in

Extent:320pp

ISBN (13):9781947534315

RRP:$16.95

Pub date:31 Dec 2018

High-res cover:Download Image

AWARDS

CATEGORIES / tags

Memoirs BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs Travel writing Places & peoples: general & pictorial works TRAVEL / United States / West / Pacific (AK, CA, HI, OR, WA)BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers TRAVEL / Special Interest / Adventure

AUTHOR

David Hirst

David Hirst was an Australian journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author of Heroin in Australia. A great love of the American West took him to California and ultimately to a life in the Eastern Mojave desert. Upon returning to Australia, his prescient and revolutionary finance column, ‘Planet Wall Street’, was widely read in The Age newspaper. David died in 2013.

Related content

David Hirst was an Australian journalist, documentary filmmaker, and…

Discover

Recommended

Quick view

Black and Blue

Veronica Gorrie

RRP: $18.00 Pub date: 1 Nov 2021 Category: Cover view

Quick view

Monsters

RRP: $18.00 Pub date: 4 Oct 2021 Category: Cover view

Quick view

A Different Kind of Seeing

RRP: $18.00 Pub date: 31 May 2021 Category: Memoirs Cover view

Quick view

The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Henriette Roosenburg

RRP: $18.00 Pub date: 2 Nov 2020 Category: Memoirs Cover view

Quick view

Ten Doors Down

RRP: $20.00 Pub date: 5 Oct 2020 Category: Memoirs Cover view

Quick view

Keep Clear

RRP: $20.00 Pub date: 6 Jul 2020 Category: Cover view

Quick view

Six Square Metres

Margaret Simons

RRP: $15.00 Pub date: 4 May 2020 Category: Cover view

Quick view

An Unconventional Wife

RRP: $30.00 Pub date: 6 Jan 2020 Category: Cover view

Quick view

First, They Erased Our Name

Habiburahman Sophie Ansel

RRP: $19.00 Pub date: 4 Nov 2019 Category: Cover view

Quick view

A Letter from Paris

RRP: $20.00 Pub date: 30 Sep 2019 Category: Cover view

Quick view

Tell It to the World

RRP: $15.95 Pub date: 26 Aug 2019 Category: Memoirs Cover view

Quick view

The Finest Gold

RRP: $19.00 Pub date: 5 Aug 2019 Category: Cover view

Quick view

The Museum of Words

RRP: $24.95 Pub date: 4 Feb 2019 Category: Memoirs Cover view

Quick view

An Untidy Life

RRP: $30.00 Pub date: 1 Oct 2018 Category: Cover view

Quick view

We Are Here

RRP: $19.95 Pub date: 1 Oct 2018 Category: True stories of heroism, endurance & survival Cover view

Quick view

Miracles Do Happen

Fela and Felix Rosenbloom

RRP: $15.95 Pub date: 6 Aug 2018 Category: True stories of heroism, endurance & survival Cover view

Quick view

Position Doubtful

RRP: $16.95 Pub date: 12 Mar 2018 Category: Indigenous peoples Cover view

Quick view

Adult Fantasy

RRP: $17.95 Pub date: 13 Nov 2017 Category: Memoirs Cover view