Dead in Long Beach, California: A Novel

ISBN: 1250338123

Author: Blackburn, Venita

Condition: New

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Today, Electric Literature, Alta, the Chicago Review of Books, and The Millions. One of NPR's Books We Love.Told by machines from the future, Blackburns idiosyncratic grief novel is as freshly devastating as they come. -The New York Times Book ReviewYou can try bracing yourself for the ride this story takes you on, but its best to just surrender. Your wig is going to fall off no matter what you do. -Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our LivesCoral is the first person to discover the body of her brother, Jay, in the wake of his suicide. Theres no note, only a drably furnished bachelor pad in Long Beach, California, and a cell phone with a handful of numbers in it. Coral pockets the phone. And then she starts responding to texts as her dead brother.Over the course of one week, Coral, the successful yet lonely author of a hit dystopian novel, Wildfire, becomes increasingly untethered from reality. Blindsided by grief and operating with reckless determination, she doubles-and triples-down on posing as her brother, risking not only her sanity but also her relationship with her precocious niece, Khadija. As Corals swirl of lies closes in on her, the quirky and mysterious alien world of Wildfire becomes entangled with her own reality, in the process pushing long-buried memories, traumas, and secrets dangerously into the present.A form-shifting and soul-crunching chronicle of grief and crisis, Venita Blackburns debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California, is a fleet-footed marvel of self-discovery and storytelling that explores the depths of humankinds capacity for harm and healing. With the daring, often hilarious imagination that made her an acclaimed short-fiction innovator, Blackburn crafts a layered, page-turning reckoning with what it means to be alive, dead, and somewhere in between.