Talking Location With… author Linda Dahl: TUCSON

12th August 2025

#TalkingLocationWith … Linda Dahl, author of Tiny Vices: TUCSON

About Tiny Vices:

The Talley siblings are planning a family beach vacation—all four of them together for the first time in years. They suspect it will be their last. And God knows they all need a vacation. But wait, is it really such a good idea? Corina, with her recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s, can hardly manage to get through a day without a debacle. Pete is a just-barely-walking catalog of medical calamities stemming from his longtime addiction. Becca is reeling from her teenage son’s latest misadventure. And then there is Kathy, the eldest. After firmly avoiding going back to Rincón Bay, the beach town just a few hours south of the Arizona–Mexico border that has haunted her since a college spring break trip three decades ago, she’s determined to go back and face her ghosts—although she might be better off facing the fact that her marriage is in serious trouble.
When the Talleys. two spouses added on at the last minute, and Corina’s Mexican housekeeper/caregiver finally land in Rincón Bay, they all encounter unexpected consequences from the wounds inflicted by careless loving—but maybe, too, the seeds of healing and hope.

I first visited Tucson in the 1970’s, after my parents, one of my brothers and a sister all gravitated to Arizona from the Midwest. It was the perfect winter vacation for a struggling young New York-based writer. Mom and Dad and brother settled in Phoenix, which was a little too golf-clubby for my taste. My sister settled in Tucson. Now that was better. A fraction of its present size (today, Tucson has more than a half million residents), Tucson was a little jewel with plenty of good restaurants and nightlife – and innumerable scenic hikes. Oh, that scenery.

Bernard watched the fading sunset outlining the foothills. I’m going to miss this view, he thought. He knew it in every shade of light and dark, those elephantine, ancient shapes that loomed as if eternally on the horizon. And the tall saguaros on the plain, standing like sentinels. As a little boy, Theo had been afraid of the saguaro cacti—saw them as giants who could come after him.

Why set up a town in the middle of the desert, a place so hot in the summer that you can burn your hands on the steering wheel of your car when you start it up if you’re not smart enough to wear gloves?  Well, because for about the other six or seven months of the year, the weather is wonderful. Ts-iuk-shun, meaning “spring at the base of the black mountain,” known today as Sentinel Peak, was a center of agriculture for thousands of years. The Tohono O’odham people built a vast network of irrigation canals and perfected their prized red-brown pottery. Then came the Spanish. The Jesuits founded the Mission San Xavier de Bac, about ten miles south of today’s downtown, in 1700, and the town then called Toixon grew up around it, gradually morphing into Tucson after the Americans bought the land from the Mexicans.

Having lived in various parts of Latin America, I love the wide array of Southwestern, and regional Mexican cuisines on offer (not to mention Italian, Thai, et al.) And Tucson, always an attraction for artists and artisans, boasts a fine art museum, numerous galleries. and a good music scene (Linda Ronstadt hails from the Old Pueblo).

To top it off, Tucson is a half day’s drive down to the Sea of Cortez, where locals can escape the summer furnace at the relaxed beach town of Rocky Point, a.k.a. Punto Punesco. Fictionalized as Rincon Bay in Tiny Vices, this little seaside resort is where the story begins – and ends.

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As they drove next to the bay, the Pedroso de Oro Hotel glowed at the far end like a mirage. Steep cliffs plunged to the sea on three sides of the over-the-top edifice, in an architectural mishmash that mimicked seemingly every known lavish style probably to launder as many ill-gotten gains as possible. Kathy’s stomach clenched as they drove. It had to have been right around here, she thought. In place of the scrub desert of decades ago, there were houses, condos, huts. Only a few expanses of desert remained. But it was along here, she knew. There was nowhere else it could have happened.

She turned to look at the sea, glinting and darkening as the sun set. People were still lazing at the beach, paddling in the water, children running around, vendors wandering for last pickings. She felt a tug of dread at this peaceful, ordinary scene. She turned and looked again at the sparse bits of desert and something flashed—it’s the sun hitting a beer can, that’s all it is, she told herself, but she must have made a loud noise, because Becca swerved.

Kathy Talley’s not the only one who faces up to some uncomfortable truths in Rocky Point. Evade, deny, or confront? Pretty much everybody’s resentments and evasions are catching up to them. How will they deal with the consequences of their tiny vices?

TUCSON TIPS:

1. The Little One is a must for breakfast or lunch in downtown Tucson. A casual, scaled-down version of Poca Cosa, one of the Old Pueblo’s most beloved and arguably its most imaginative Mexican restaurants, The Little One boasts its own delicious entrees and has an interesting gift shop.
2. Tohono Chul in northwest (check) Tucson, offers lush gardens with plenty of shade, galleries, gift shop and a lovely patio restaurant. One of my faves.
3. San Javier del Bac Mission church, a scenic drive about ten miles south of downtown Tucson on the Tohono O’odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation, was founded in 1692. The church is a splendid example of Spanish colonial architecture, chock full of fascinating history on what remains of the ancient native American homeland.

LINDA DAHL began writing as a freelancer about two passions, jazz and Latin America, before turning to fiction. She has written ten published books, including the novels Tiny Vices, An Upside-Down Sky, Gringa in a Strange Land, and The Bad Dream Notebook, and the nonfiction works Stormy Weather and Morning Glory. Her books have consistently garnered awards and praise, including a Notable Book of the Year nod from The New York Times Book Review for Morning Glory in 2000 and an IBPA Ben Franklin Awards Finalist in Popular Fiction for The Bad Dream Notebook in 2017. Linda loves reading, swimming, music, and doing volunteer work in her community. She lives in Riverdale, New York. Find her online at lindadahlbooks.com

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