Dead in Long Beach, California

/ Venita Blackburn

I find myself drawn to books about grief, I suppose because it’s one of the most disorienting, indeed psychedelic, of earthly experiences. Those who represent it well are almost always saying something interesting about living, too. Such is the case with Venita Blackburn’s debut novel, Death in Long Beach, California. In it, a woman named Coral discovers the body of her brother, who has committed suicide, and reacts by digitally impersonating him, answering his texts and thereby keeping news of his death from his daughter and his friends. It would be easy to see the move as one of disavowal or disrespect, but there’s something intimate and beautiful about the narrator’s need to try slipping into her brother’s skin. It’s a gesture of obstruction but also protection. The plot makes for a wild ride, as does the collective voice of the characters from Coral’s sci-fi graphic novel, which form a kind of parallel text. 

I love a text within a text. Here, the device is sometimes confusing but that only adds to the general (and appropriate) psychological cacophony of the novel. Blackburn’s writing is complicated and richly amusing. She is especially good at lists: stacks of unlike bits of capitalist detritus that accumulate throughout the book like so many piles of compacted trash bound for the Pacific garbage vortex. I really liked this one and have decided I’m entering a Venita Blackburn phase. 

—Nina Renata-Aron/ Reviewed MONTH 20xx

august 1, 2023 / scribner / 352 PAGES