Death Valley

By: Melissa Broder

Narrated by: Melissa Broder

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©2023 Melissa Broder (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

I really didn’t like it

Nothing happens in the book. Literally nothing. Its a woman narrating random thoughts about her sick father and sick husband.

A looooong stretch of narcissistic oh poor me life is happening to me book

This book went by like a kidney stone. Just an unlikable character having hallucinations in the desert and trying to process how to feel about the ill people around het