“The novel defies genre, mashing up generous helpings of pulp fiction and spaghetti westerns with an abridged history lesson on America’s nuclear heritage…. Hypnotic in its weirdness, Death Valley laments a world that has played host to the Cold War, the atomic bomb, and wars big and small from Vietnam to Iraq.”

“Susan Perly’s novel Death Valley takes on a devastated landscape that is simultaneously celebrated and erased in North American consciousness. Her principal characters move through scenery that is the setting for glamorous Hollywood versions of the West and also the site of atomic tests past and present.”

“We encounter strange half-human, half-animal creatures as the group moves through Death Valley hitting up diners, motels, army-restricted areas, ghost towns, and old film locations in a voyage that goes in and out of focus as the perception of time recedes and flows.”

“The novel becomes a commentary about the state of the world in which atomic bombs and wars have become commonplace. Thus, the absurdity of the world Perly describes is in fact a lament for the absurdity of the world we live in – a world that has played host to cold wars, world wars and too many other tragedies to count.”