Death Valley

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Death Valley written and read by Melissa Broder.

‘Riotously original ... A triumph’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘A journey unlike any you've read before’ NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH

‘Her most profound book yet ... Surreal, hysterical and beguiling in every sense’ GLAMOUR

The most profound book yet from the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, a darkly funny novel about grief that becomes a desert survival story.

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.

This is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative, most universal, and finest. This is Death Valley.

PRAISE FOR THE PISCES

'Of all the books that I read this summer I think this was my absolute favourite. It really blew me away' DOLLY ALDERTON
'Frank, provocative and brilliant' INDEPENDENT
'Hilarious, poignant, sexy. A brilliant story about why we crave connection and how to find ourselves' ELLE
'Laugh-out-loud funny' i

Critics Review

A truly trippy survival story ... To her fans, Broder’s luscious, witty, surprising words are a balm whatever she’s talking about ... A mighty adventure story that is as earthy, wild and self-aware as its author
The Times
Death Valley is that inner core of the journey narrative: a story of transformative experience. Swirling with big questions about life and death, grief and love
Irish Times
Melissa Broder is back – and Death Valley may well be her best book yet. This darkly funny novel about grief starts with a woman checking into a Best Western hotel and smartly turns into a journey of survival
Sunday Times Style
Funny, frank and life-affirming
Daily Mail
[Broder] returns with her inimitable acerbic wit and keen observational eye, and Death Valley is her most profound book yet ... Surreal, hysterical and beguiling in every sense
Glamour
A modern fairytale ... One of the strengths of Death Valley is Broder’s ability to track her heroine’s emotional vulnerabilities and quirks in a manner that makes her readers familiars on the journey ... Broder is smart enough to give us a protagonist who is more hopeful than helpless, and engaging enough to keep readers wondering what she will encounter next
Guardian
Melissa Broder’s Death Valley is an off-kilter triumph ... Her latest blends absurdity with soul-shattering profundity ... Death Valley is a refreshingly irreverent take on some very dark topics indeed. Death, illness, love, selfhood – each is held tenderly to the light before being swiftly undercut by some quip or other ... This is another fiercely funny must-read from the author – a supremely special book
i
A curious mixture of grief, psychedelia and old-fashioned thrills ... A white-knuckled survival story ... Death Valley is an excellent psychological portrait of a woman coming to terms with the co-existence of life and death
Telegraph
Incandescent … A survival adventure that couldn’t have been better written by Jack London himself. Broder’s euphoric plotting and winning characters combine with a gift for desert description ... reminiscent of Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. I tried to ration this book but guzzled
New York Times
Weird, unsettling and sexy, Death Valley is Melissa Broder at her imaginative best
Red Magazine
Broder writes with her customary slick humour and there are moments of real wit ... Energetically surreal
Independent
Broder’s writing is comedic and earthbound … Still, there is a profundity and tenderness to Broder’s language that tempers the dry wit
Literary Review
A journey and exploration of love, loss and grief, which is emotional, dangerous, funny, and thought-provoking. A wonderfully unique book
Heat
I’ve never read a novel that portrays grief quite like Death Valley. Somehow, Melissa Broder captures both the punishing ordinariness of loss while also showing us how extraordinary it is to have been here at all – and to love each other besides. There is deep wisdom in these pages, and I know I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time
Mary Beth Keane, author of ASK AGAIN, YES
A journey unlike any you've read before. Death Valley by Melissa Broder is a beautifully wild leap into the mysterious desert that is grief
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS and FRIDAY BLACK
Vulnerable, witty, trippy and conceptually dazzling all at once
Kimberly King Parsons, author of BLACK LIGHT
A cerebral, darkly funny take on grief, self-expression and the mystical, healing power of nature
Marie Claire
Magnetically written and snort-out-loud funny at times. Broder is always astute in observing modern life
Jewish Chronicle

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