‘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