Dead in Long Beach, California

A Novel

By: Venita Blackburn

Narrated by: Lynnette Freeman

Long-listed, Joyce Carol Oates Prize, 2024

Long-listed, New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2024

Long-listed, NPR Best Book of the Year, 2024

"This book rewired my brain; it's a bonafide knockout."—Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth

"You can try bracing yourself for the ride this story takes you on, but it's 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 Lives

A gut-busting and heartbreaking descent into one woman's fraying connection to reality, from a soon-to-be superstar.

Coral is the first person to discover her brother Jay’s dead body in the wake of his suicide. There’s 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 own sanity but her relationship with her precocious niece, Khadijah. As Coral’s swirl of lies slowly closes in on her, the quirky and mysterious alien world of Wildfire becomes enmeshed in 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 Blackburn’s debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California, is a fleet-footed marvel of self-discovery and storytelling that explores the depths of humankind’s 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2024 Venita Blackburn (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Despite the heavy subject matter, sensitively handled, this is frequently a deeply funny novel . . . Blackburn shares a deep intellect and odd sensibility with authors like George Saunders and Rion Amilcar Scott, but this novel is its own thing: intelligent, bizarre, and brilliantly written. An astonishing debut novel from a remarkably creative writer."—Kirkus (starred review)

"An engaging and original portrait of a woman on the verge . . . Blackburn is formidable, her writing is experimental in intriguing and meaningful ways, and this is another winner."—Booklist

"Bold and formally inventive . . . Blackburn is an excellent prose stylist. Coral’s sections are full of acerbic wit . . . This ambitious effort is worth a look."—Publishers Weekly

a pretentious slog

some of the most pretentious, calculated, inauthentic writing -- and reading -- I've experienced in some time. interesting concepts and notions, simply ham-handed.

What a disjointed mess

The premise sounded very interesting and I was looking forward to this one. The execution, however, could hardly be any worse. If this was meant to be a commentary on our over-stimulated, excessively distracted world, it works for that. But in telling a cohesive, comprehensible narrative, it falls far short.

Too much fluff

Get to the point of the story I can’t finish as it’s so annoying the vast amount of digressions

BORING

Disliked the entire story. Couldn't finish it. Would not recommend. Should have saved the credit.

Great Literary Work

Great literary work - This book covers complex and some socially charged subject matter. If readers take an objective approach to this work, the heart of each storyteller is exposed with deep insights about developmental years through adulthood that shape the character and life of individuals portrayed. Patience is a virtue that pays off if readers give this book its due attention!