My new novel, DEATH VALLEY (out October 24, 2023) is a comedic odyssey through the desert of grief–and an exploration of the rich oases we may discover in that arid landscape.
In this desert, you’ll encounter: a magic cactus, talking rocks, a non-consensual encounter with a snake, teen rabbits engaged in philosophical discourse, an underground river, a psychic medium who channels Carmela Soprano, and the real hero of the novel: a Grab ‘n Go breakfast from the Best Western.
DEATH VALLEY asks questions about how to want what we already have, how to allow a loved one to die in their own way, and why at times it’s easier to have a relationship with the dead than with the living.
“A revelation…Melissa Broder has produced one of the strangest and sexiest novels of the new year: a harrowing, exhilarating, and frankly obscene exploration of all the ways we endeavor to make ourselves disappear — and the untold liberty that comes when our appetites are freed at last.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Milk Fed is a romp…a pageant of bodily juices and exploratory fingers and moan after moan of delight.” —Los Angeles Times(profile)
“A dizzily compelling story of love, lust, addiction, faith, maternal longing, and…frozen yogurt… Broder’s sex writing is, as always, first-rate, but perhaps even more striking is her ability to lay bare the frantic interior calculus of disordered eating alongside the hypnotic pull of spirituality.” —Vogue
“Milk-Fed gathers strands of faith, hunger, queerness, lust, and loneliness and braids them into a fully risen challah of human experience.”—Vogue(profile)
“Milk Fed bravely questions the particularly female lionization of thin and loathing of fat, landing on fresh explanations…deliciously droll…a celebration of bodily liberation.” —The New York Times
“A sensuous and delightfully delirious tale… Filled with an unadulterated filthiness that would make Philip Roth blush, Broder’s latest is a devour-it-in-one-sitting wonder.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“A thrilling examination of hunger, desire, faith, family and love.” —Time
“An erotic, singular experience that could only come from Broder’s fascinating mind…this book is sensual, it’s brimming with tension and food and fantasies…It’s gonna make you feel.” —Today Show
“Broder…has a rare ability to ground her fantasy in reality without undermining her imaginative vision, making it feel personal and raw and relatable…with humanity, sardonic wit, and erotic scenes so potent that the heat of my blushing face made my NYC-apartment radiator’s seem tepid, Milk-Fed vividly evokes the lives of each woman, so that we’re fully invested in them.” —The Boston Globe
“Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is a delectable exploration of physical and emotional hunger.” —The Washington Post
“[An] outstanding second novel, a bold and luscious story of desire in all its forms—for food, for sex, for belonging…Rarely has the fraught intersection of pleasure, appetite, and diet culture been written about so deliciously as in Milk Fed.” —Esquire
“Captivating…delicious and depraved and unlike anything you’ve read before…You will eat this up.” —Glamour
“Hilarious, lush and sorrowful…This work is unafraid of vulnerability, and appetite, and loss.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Few writers so innately understand or better capture the endless, palpable hunger that so many people carry around with them…for food, for sex, for love, for compassion, for understanding, and it is this kind of ravenous appetite that Broder explores in her exultant new novel… riotously funny and perfectly profane.” —Refinery 29
“Milk Fed is a tale of appetites…It has nearly everything I want to read about in one novel.” —Refinery 29 (profile)
“Anything by Melissa Broder is an immediate must-read… a precise blend of desire, discomfort, spirituality, and existential ache makes Broder’s depiction of the human experience so canny.” —Buzzfeed
“A scrumptious novel…Broder’s funny, semi-sweet writing will leave you ravenous for more.” —The Week
“This poignant exploration of desire, religion, and daughterhood is hard to resist.” —Publishers Weekly
“Bold, wry, and delightfully dirty…Broder is a formidable writer.” —Kirkus
“Spell-caster Broder guides readers through this seriously tender tale of transformation with seamless humor and staggering smarts: it contains multitudes. An empathic, enrapturing, unputdownable novel of faith, sex, love, and nurture.” —Booklist, starred review
Pre-order MILK FED (my new novel of sex, food, and god) and get one of these two wildly stimulating offers…
MENSCH LEVEL – Pre-order MILK FED from any retailer (Bookshop / Indiebound / Barnes & Noble / Amazon / etc.) (or the audiobook, which is narrated by me at Audible or Google Play) and you will receive a digital copy of TWIZZLER ON THE ROOF—the exclusive MILK FED recipe book written by me (a little gross but very soulful). Simply fill out this form with your receipt number.
Eligibility: Adults 18 years and older. US & Canada residents.
*
UBERMENSCH LEVEL – Pre-order from a participating independent bookseller (independent bookstores forevs!) and you’ll receive the official MILK FED Gourmand Starter Pack (fuck!) which includes:
*A printed copy of TWIZZLER ON THE ROOF—the exclusive MILK FED recipe book written by me (not your bubbe’s cookbook, I tell you this) *A MILK FED book plate signed by me (chic and literary!) *A snack pack of Twizzlers (for that snack ‘n read experience) *A mini box of cereal (a caloric mitzvah!) *Packets of Splenda (for all your Milk Fed recipe needs)
PLEASE NOTE: The Milk Fed Gourmand Starter Pack (UBERMENSCH level) is only available to US residents ages 18 years and older. If you preorder via a participating indie retailer, you will receive your book and starter pack from that bookseller at the time of publication.
What does Veronica want?
Does Veronica exist?
Is Veronica aware of reality as we know it?
Who are we?
Who are you?
Are you struggling to pay rent?
Are you struggling emotionally?
Veronica is paying rent easily but she is struggling emotionally.
Can you relate to Veronica on that level?
If you cannot pay rent and Veronica can, and you are struggling emotionally and she is struggling emotionally, can you relate to her on an emotional level?
If Veronica feels like everything is dark, like she is swimming with a blindfold on, can you be friends?
What if she knows nothing about class struggle?
Can you meet her in the dark?
Can you share the dark?
Can you touch her hands?
Can you hold her?
Can she touch your hands?
Can she hold you?
Can you say I do not know what was written?
Can you say I do not know if anything was written?
She will say I am afraid nothing was written.
Can you nod?
"Milk Fed is a romp…a pageant of bodily juices and exploratory fingers and moan after moan of delight." –Los Angeles Times
"A dizzily compelling story of love, lust, addiction, faith, maternal longing, and…frozen yogurt." –Vogue
"A revelation…Melissa Broder has produced one of the strangest and sexiest novels of the new year..." –Entertainment Weekly
"A thrilling examination of hunger, desire, faith, family and love." –Time
"Milk Fed bravely questions the particularly female lionization of thin and loathing of fat, landing on fresh explanations…deliciously droll…a celebration of bodily liberation." –The New York Times
"Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is a delectable exploration of physical and emotional hunger." –The Washington Post
"A sensuous and delightfully delirious tale… Filled with an unadulterated filthiness that would make Philip Roth blush, Broder’s latest is a devour-it-in-one-sitting wonder." –O, the Oprah Magazine
"A modern-day mythology for women on the verge — if everything on the surface stops making sense, all you need to do is dive deeper.." –The New York Times
"The Pisces convincingly romances the void." –The New Yorker
"Explosive, erotic, scathingly funny…a profound take on connection and longing that digs deep." –Entertainment Weekly
"The dirtiest, most bizarre, most original works of fiction I’ve read in recent memory…Broder has a talent for distilling graphic sexual thoughts, humor, female neuroses and the rawest kind of emotion into a sort of delightfully nihilistic, anxiety-driven amuse bouche…" –Vogue.com
"A page turner of a novel…funny and frank." –Washington Post
"The Pisces is an intellectual, enthralling voyage into one woman’s swirling mind as she brushes with the extraordinary."
–Refinery29
"Get ready to laugh-cry over and over again...a perverse romance that captures the addictive and destructive forces of obsessive love. The Pisces is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking."
–Vulture.com
"What separates Broder from her confessional cohort...is that she doesn’t seem to be out to shock, but to survive." –Elle
"Broder presents a dizzying array of intimate dispatches and confessions…She has a near-supernatural ability to not only lay bare her darkest secrets, but to festoon those secrets with jokes, subterfuge, deep shame, bravado, and poetic turns of phrase." –New York Magazine
"A triumph of unsettlingly relatable prose." –Vanity Fair
"Her writing is deeply personal, sophisticated in its wit, and at the same time, devastating. SO SAD TODAY is a portrait of modern day existence told with provocative, irreverent honesty." –Nylon
"At once devastating and delightful, this deeply personal collection of essays…is as raw as it is funny." –Cosmopolitan
"Broder writes about the hot-pink toxins inhaled every day by girls and women...and the seemingly impossible struggle to exhale something pure, maybe even eternal...there's a bleak beauty in the way she articulates her lowest moments." –Bookforum
"Broder may be talking about things like sexts, Botox, and crushes, but these things are considered alongside contemplations about mortality, identity, and the difficulty of finding substance in a world where sometimes it’s so much easier to exist behind a screen." –The Fader
"…So Sad Today is uplifting and dispiriting in seemingly equal measure. It’s a book that’s incredibly human in the way it allows for deep self-reflection alongside Broder, which speaks not only to her powerful writing but also the internet’s magical ability to foster connections." –A.V. Club
"...delightful...Broder embarks on an earnest, sophisticated inquiry into the roots and expressions of her own sadness...deeply confessional writing brings disarming humor and self-scrutiny...Broder's central insight is clear: it is ok to be sad, and our problems can't be reduced to a single diagnosis. " –Publishers Weekly
"Broder is probably the Internet’s most powerful merchant of feelings…" –GQ
"Vividly rendered and outspokenly delivered essays…Sordid, compulsively readable entries that lay bare a troubled soul painstakingly on the mend." –Kirkus Reviews
"Broder manages to conjure a psychic realm best described as one part twisted funhouse and two parts Catholic school, heavy on libido and with a dash of magick. This gritty, cherry soda–black book...is bizarrely sexy in its monstrousness." –Publishers Weekly
"I don’t know what a book is if not a latch to elsewhere, and Scarecrone has pressed its skull against the hidden door. It is neither drunk nor ecstatic to be here—it is a state unto itself." –VICE
"Lushly dark and infused with references to black magic, Broder's work often feels less like a book and more like a mystical text." –PAPERMAG
"Out to 'crucify boredom,' her poems show us how any relationship with the divine is no less at risk of engendering grotesque lust...What makes Broder such a pleasure on the page is her insistence that these dramas play out on a workaday stage infused with surreal Pop and imaginative muscle..." –Publishers Weekly
"With a title recalling Yeats...Broder risks the divine in her second book...shrewd, funny, twisted, sad poems..." –The Chicago Tribune
"Meat Heart...is unbelievable and overwhelming for its imaginative power alone, but if you listen past the weird you can hear all sorts of things: sadness, seriousness, life, death, and a whole lot of laughter....Broder is a tremendous talent" –Flavorwire
"...Meat Heart embodies that strain of sustenance, that sort of psychosomatic excitement most valiant art more or less tries to pull off…Her poems don’t bore or bear down. They beam oracle energy. They pump a music of visions for the life-lusty death dance." –BOMB
