The Darling of Blackrock Desert: three novellas of the west

From the critically acclaimed short fiction writer Laura Newman, whose first collection of stories, PW effused “with candor and wry wit, and memorable details, these stories shimmer,” come three, thematically-liked, quirky yet resonant novellas that together form an unusual and original view of western American life.

In The Darling of the Black Rock Desert, Julia loves Howi, but never intends to marry him until she realizes she’s pregnant with few options; it is, after all, 1960. Life becomes more complicated and yet richer when their darling daughter, Nia, is born with a physical disability. Despite her infirmity, Nia manages to have a fairly normal, happy childhood, beloved by her best friend Wynona and their male sidekicks until tragedy strikes and family life comes undone.

It’s 1986 in City of Angels when Henri and Simone Bouchard meet in the iconic Los Angeles Central Library. Simone is a college art student, and Lenny is a Viet Nam vet trying to survive extreme PTSD. They strike up an unlikely acquaintance that is interrupted when the great Los Angeles Library fire of 1986 happens, a substantial portion of the books—and their tenuous connection—going up in flames. Will they find one another again?

It's 2006 in The Saints of Death ValleyT, a nun in a San Francisco convent adopts a baby left on the doorstep and in order to raise her must leave the faith. Named Grace, the baby grows up; however, after committing what she fears to be an unforgivable sin, Grace takes her bag of holy cards and hits the road, winding up at the Burning Man Festival and then in Death Valley where she is taken in by a family of pastry chefs and landscapers and tries to reinvent herself in a secular world.

Newman’s trio of novellas about desert misfits are by turns probing, incandescent, and like her shorter fiction, riotously funny and are certain to broaden her readership.