Melissa Broder Death Valley it is an unbridled triumph. A Los Angeles-based author began tweeting funny thoughts about mental health through an anonymous Twitter account. @sosadtodayThe result was a collection of essays of the same name.
Since then, she has published two great works of fiction, and, as you would expect from the author of these novels, the work is 2018. Fish is about a woman who finds sexual satisfaction with a mythical sea creature and 2021. fed milk is about a talent agency employee who falls in love with an Orthodox Jewish yogurt maker. Her latest work combines absurdity with heartbreaking depth.
Death ValleyThe film’s unnamed narrator has a father in intensive care and a husband suffering from a chronic illness, which, incidentally, reflects Brodeur’s personal situation at the time of writing. The narrator escapes his busy daily life to the California desert, where he plans to write a book—a project that looks suspiciously similar to the novel we are now reading.
The narrator hopes to draw inspiration from the barren landscape to complete her book, but even though she knows that “the woman” needs an experience that will change her point of view and “catalyze that transformation of character that I believe is necessary.” A successful romance,” she’s not sure what the experience might entail. Luckily, the universe had teaching material in store for her—both as an author and as a leading lady.
Now comes the absurdity. Leaving the Best Western motel, the narrator encounters a giant cactus; She slips through a wound on her torso and ends up in a parallel reality, in which she meets her father as a child and teenager and her husband as a sickly boy. “My father, child: how did this happen? I don’t use psychedelics. I don’t even take cough medicine.”
While the experience is confusing, it is also exhilarating; Meeting the men who dominate her current inner life as in the past allows her to empathize rather than blame herself (in the case of her father) or become angry (in the case of her husband). But returning to the cactus, she gets lost – gradually, and then suddenly. She falls off a ledge, breaks her ankle, runs out of water, and is struck by the extreme desert temperatures. She soon finds herself in great danger. “I’m bleeding on the mountain,” I wonder. Big ugly mountain. I feel very small. Like an insect. Or a person.”
Alone with her thoughts and thirst, the narrator begins conversations with inanimate objects and animals and her growing hallucinations. Death ValleyThe murmur of voices gives the book a frenetic pace. Ultimately, the boundaries between the magical, the imaginary and the real are completely blurred, giving way to snapshots of sensations: the narrator’s father holds her in his arms, giving her oceans of doctor. Pepper feeds like a bottle-fed baby; a huge bird that carries her on its back to the trailhead and ends up saving her life.
Death Valley indeed, it’s a refreshingly irreverent look at some very dark topics. Death, illness, love, individuality are all tenderly brought into the light before being quickly destroyed by some joke (“It’s so strange to be human,” Broder writes at one point). This is another incredibly funny book by the author that is a must read – very special.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.