Here’s something personal that you didn’t ask for: I lost my cat last month. He had been with me for the last 12 of his 18 years on earth, and I swear I’ve never been closer to another living thing.
If you’ve had that kind of connection with a living thing, you know how hard it is when they’re gone all of a sudden. For me there was just this gaping hole, and as most of my emotions do, that hole bled over into my reading life. I was jumping from thing to thing, completely unsatisfied with every option I was picking up. But then a friend reminded me that Melissa Broder’s new book was about to come out, and so I grabbed my early copy and that hole was filled. For at least a time, I was laughing and crying with another human (yes, a fictional human still counts), and in the end I felt a bit of relief in the realization that we are all grieving different things all the time - sometimes even before they are actually gone. It’s simply a part of life.
Death Valley is a story about a writer who has taken herself to a hotel in the middle of the desert to remove distractions and finally finish the novel she’s been working on for too long. But of course she doesn’t actually achieve that. Over the course of a perfectly brief 227 pages, we learn about the different kinds of grief that this woman is trying to escape, and then is forced to examine and interact with through a series of increasingly surreal and ridiculous events. I mean, she finds and enters a giant magical cactus in the middle of the desert where she’s reunited with the childhood version of her father. You just have to go with it. But Broder is an author you can trust with a ride like that. Let go, let her do her thing, and you won’t be disappointed.
Broder’s works are often absurd, at times uncomfortable, and always include the kind of smart (and snarky) humor that will make you laugh out loud. I found this book exactly when I needed it. And hopefully, you will too.
Kari Meutsch and Kristian Preylowski co-own and run the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock.