Melissa Broder: Death Valley, Gebunden

Blurb

'Riotously original ... A triumph' New York Times

' A journey unlike any you've read before ' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars

' There is deep wisdom in these pages ' Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes

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