Description
Keynote
From the Women’s Prizelonglisted
author of The Pisces and Milk Fed, a comic novel
about grief and survival in the California desert
Description
‘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'
