The Desire Card by Lee Matthew Goldberg was published on the 19th of February this year by Fahrenheit Press, who have become known for their traditional crime, hard-boiled noir and experimental crime fiction. Publishing novels that get under your skin, as well as getting those brain clogs turning. The Desire Card is one of those reads that is guaranteed to stay with you long after reading. You can treat yourself to a paperback copy here, and get the ebook version absolutely free! Aren’t the people at Fahrenheit Press amazing!
Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of two novels Slow Down and The Mentor. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar for The Mentor with the film in development. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in the anthology DIRTY BOULEVARD, The Millions, Cagibi, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. He lives in New York City.
‘Any wish fulfilled for the right price. That’s the promise the organization behind The Desire Card gives to its elite clients – but sometimes the price may be more menacing than anyone could ever imagine. Harrison Stockton has lived an adult life of privilege and excess: a high-powered job on Wall Street fuels his fondness for alcohol and pills at the expense of a family he has no time for. Quite suddenly all of this comes crashing to a halt when he loses his job and at the same time discovers he almost certainly has only months left to live. Desperate, and with seemingly nowhere else left to turn, Harrison activates his Desire Card. What follows is a gritty and gripping quest that takes him from New York City to the slums of Mumbai and forces him to take chances, and make decisions, he never thought he’d ever have to face. When his moral descent threatens his wife and children, Harrison must decide whether to save himself at any cost, or do what’s right and break his bargain with the mysterious group behind The Desire Card.’
Immediately upon starting The Desire Card, I knew that I was going to have to brace myself for the darkest and most thought provoking novel that I’ve read in awhile, I can assure you now that I was not disappointed. Lee Matthew Goldberg has created an intensely twisted storyline, that I felt revolved hugely around the concept of riches, power and greed (including eating and drinking to excess). The biggest question is, how far would you go to get everything that you desired? Do we always actually want what we wish for?
Harrison is our male protagonist. He loses his high powered job at the equally high coveted work place – Wall Street. This is where he became drenched in this unhealthy privileged attitude, but what happens when it is pulled like a rug from beneath him? He fails to accept it, but then he gets a terminal revelation which sends him running into the loving hands of desperation. It was at this point that I felt Harrison’s narrative grasped quite a dark version of Scrooge in terms of regrettable thoughts in terms of mental hallucinations but that was only the beginning of Harrison’s unravelled life. Even when travelling half way across the world in hope of treatment, he refused to share this with his family and still felt superiority over those in Mumbai. You can’t help but completely despise the character that Lee Matthew Goldberg has created, but for me my rage sometimes levelled to a heart sinking sympathy for Harrison. Talk about a conflict of emotions.
Although The Desire Card is a work of fiction, the themes that emerge from its pitch black depths are real and honestly quite haunting including the great divide between the rich and poor, the power of money and the lengths that those with less with go through to insure that their family is fed, cared for etc. I felt that Lee Matthew Goldberg had researched a large part of the novel that helped the visualisation and narrative tie together with believability. The themes also allowed a feel of reality, as well as plausibility which 100% will keep you grippingly absorbed until the last page. A well planned out and exquisitely written noir thriller that I loved reading.
I highly recommend The Desire Card to readers that enjoy a dark, memorably twisty and horrifyingly plausible read. One warning, do not make plans on the day of purchase / delivery because you’re not going to want to put it down.
Have you already read The Desire Card? Share your thoughts in the comment section!
Happy reading!
The Reading Closet 