She turns up at a chicken ranch in the desert where interns work in return for bed, board, and spiritual healing from the charismatic Patrick. There is Britt, a young woman trying to escape her former life. Six disparate characters are revealed in a series of vignettes set in 20, the year of the naked runner. While Tony is stopped, the naked runner goes on. The incident is all over the news channels and the internet. Tony, hemmed in by his boring job and inflexible wife, is overcome by the sense of freedom that the naked man inspires and he abandons his car and runs after him. Suddenly a naked man appears, running between the cars at a steady pace.
It opens with a traffic jam on an LA freeway, people sweating in their cars as they try to get to work. Set in modern-day California but not in the affluent areas often portrayed in films and television programmes, this work is located in the grimy, smelly underbelly of the sunshine state and the city of angels. Sometimes it is beatific, sometimes surreal, and sometimes the stuff of nightmares. There is a dream-like quality to Wonder Valley, Ivy Pochoda’s third novel. Published by The Indigo Press 20 September 2018
0 kommentar(er)
