Death Valley : a novel

Title:

Author:

Summary:

In Melissa Broder’s astounding new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thanks to a receptionist who recommends a nearby hike. Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant. -- Amazon.

Edition:

First Scribner hardcover edition.

Physical Description:

232 pages ; 23 cm.

Genre:

Magic realist fiction.

Psychological fiction.

Subject Term:

Women novelists -- Fiction.

Married people -- Fiction.

Fathers and daughters -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Scribner,

Publication Date:

2023

ISBN:

9781668024843

Publication Information:

New York : Scribner, 2023.

Call Number:

BRODER

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003676080	New Adult Fiction	BRODER Melissa	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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On Order

Summary

Named a Best Book of 2023 by The New York Times ("incandescent...hilarious...a triumph"), Oprah Daily ("surreal, absurd, lucid, and wise"), Vanity Fair ("Broder [is] a genius and a sorceress"), and more!

From the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces , a darkly funny novel about grief and a "magical tale of survival" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review).

In Melissa Broder's astonishingly profound new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow--for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path discovered on a nearby hike.

Out along the sun-scorched trail, the narrator encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious, and poignant.

Death Valley is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative, most universal, and finest, and is "a journey unlike any you've read before" (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black ).

Author Notes

Melissa Broder is the author of the novels Milk Fed , The Pisces , and Death Valley , the essay collection So Sad Today , and five poetry collections, including Superdoom . She has written for The New York Times , Elle , and New York magazine's The Cut . She lives in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @SoSadToday and @MelissaBroder and Instagram @RealMelissaBroder.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In the infectious and dreamy latest from Broder (Milk Fed), a Los Angeles woman finds new ways to deal with anxiety and depression after discovering a fantastical giant cactus in the California desert. The unnamed narrator, a 40-something married novelist coping with her father's recent car accident and his continued stay in the ICU, takes a solo road trip for some relief. She checks into a Best Western hotel in Death Valley, Calif., telling herself the excursion will also help inspire her novel in progress, which she expects to feature a desert-based epiphany. While hiking on a trail near the hotel, she sees a towering cactus and passes through a portal on its surface. Inside, she encounters a five-year-old version of her father and comforts him. It's a funhouse warping of the care she misses from her dad, which she hasn't had since she was a child. Later, in between successive hikes to the cactus, she has brief FaceTime calls with her father in the hospital and with her husband, and continues to feel distant from both men. During the fourth hike, she gets lost and learns to summon her survival instincts. Despite the novel's intense interiority, Broder's narrator is consistently companionable; the story works because she enjoys talking to herself, a personality quirk Broder finds clever ways to convey ("I am overextended and cannot fulfill your request at this time. Best, me," she imagines writing to herself as an away message). Readers ought not to miss this magical tale of survival. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co. (Sept.)

Library Journal Review

Broder (Milk Fed) has written a weird and wacky treatise on grief. The protagonist is an author trying to complete her newest novel while dealing with serious family issues. Her husband has been debilitated by an undiagnosed illness for years; her father was in a terrible car accident several months earlier but has cheated death twice while remaining mostly unresponsive in the ICU; her mother deals with it all by adhering to strict superstitions. The protagonist hits the road, leaving Los Angeles, and heads to the desert, where she is delighted to find a room in her favorite hotel chain, Best Western. Written in the first person, the novel's first half details the protagonist's journey to this point. The second half is a stream of consciousness of her visit to the desert, hallucinating an enormous cactus and going inside it; very much an escape from reality. The humor is bleak, the metaphors strong, and her grief palpable. The meandering story finally arrives at a somewhat surprising, almost heartfelt ending. VERDICT Buy for demand only. For the literary sophisticate; read-alikes include the works of Banana Yoshimoto and Jeffrey Eugenides.--Stacy Alesi