2024 BOOK REVIEW #18: DEATH VALLEY BY MELISSA BRODER

A one plane ride read Death Valley by Melissa Border is a surrealist look into dealing with the sickness and looming death of a husband and father, and literally becoming the desert in an ill fated trek to a lost magic giant Saguaro cactus with an Alice in Wonderland ecosexual slit.

The protagonist is working on her own novel, both more and less preposterous than the resulting book, adding to the mirror effect.

She’s perpetually checking obscure subreddits for answers and always self-obsessed while peculiarly attentive to nature and those around her.

The employees of the Best Western where she stays for a few days are both in the background and everywhere, her saviors and her doomsayers.

The rocks speak back, while Facetime drops and texts go unanswered. The final section feels like the wreck of global warming upon us. What do we have but family, however many missed opportunities there might have been, seems to be the moral of the story, while fantasies are best left at that, and the mind alone can go on that ride.