Incandescent… Pochoda keeps you guessing while bringing these lost souls wonderfully, intensely alive.” — People, Book of the Week
“A dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California. . . . Impossible to put down. . . . It’s the memorable characters and beautiful prose that make the novel so successful. . . . Unexpected and pitch-perfect.” — Los Angeles Times
“Audacious. . . . Each character is realized with vivid empathy. . . . A richly Californian novel, drenched in enough sunlight to illuminate the harshest of truths.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Enthralling. . . . A compassionate look at the displaced that treats each with respect and humanity.” — Associated Press
“Pochoda’s steady hand and sharp eye keep all of her characters moving swiftly and gracefully through the variegated L.A. landscape.” — LitHub
“Pochoda is a masterful storyteller. . . . [She’s] come up with a harmonious narrative that showcases the human condition, full of ecstasy, angst, rage, and beauty.” — Nylon Magazine
“Pochoda is a master. . . . It’s not a far stretch to consider Pochoda to be in company of James Ellroy, Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker. . . . It wouldn’t be a big surprise to find Wonder Valley on the short list for several awards.” — BookPage
“Evoked by Pochoda in shimmering detail. . . . Absorbing, finely detailed, nasty California noir.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Pochoda has written a novel alive with empathy for the dispossessed and detailed description of the California landscape.” — Publishers Weekly
“Ambitious, absorbing. . . . Pochoda paints southern California with a vibrant brush, rendering an evocative landscape on which her desperate characters seek out redemption and rejuvenation.” — Booklist
“Pochoda takes readers places they don’t often see with authenticity and clarity. . . . Vivid and sympathetic.” — Library Journal
“Wonder Valley seethes with the vivid, searching idea of southern California. But as the intersecting journeys of hippie acolytes, restless hoods, lost boys and all manner of runaways converge, Pochoda enacts an aching dream of home that will possess and haunt you.” — Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek
“Wonder Valley is destined to be a classic L.A. novel. From desert scrub to cold blue sea, it carries an eloquent yet hard-edge take on the contradictions of a place so difficult to define. It’s impossible to put down.” — Michael Connelly, author of The Wrong Side of Goodbye
“A vision of Southern California that is at once panoramic and intimate. . . . This novel paints an unforgettable portrait of people who long, above all else, for community and connection.” — Edan Lepucki, author of California
Pochoda is a masterful storyteller. . . . [She’s] come up with a harmonious narrative that showcases the human condition, full of ecstasy, angst, rage, and beauty.
Audacious. . . . Each character is realized with vivid empathy. . . . A richly Californian novel, drenched in enough sunlight to illuminate the harshest of truths.
Pochoda is a master. . . . It’s not a far stretch to consider Pochoda to be in company of James Ellroy, Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker. . . . It wouldn’t be a big surprise to find Wonder Valley on the short list for several awards.
Incandescent… Pochoda keeps you guessing while bringing these lost souls wonderfully, intensely alive.
Enthralling. . . . A compassionate look at the displaced that treats each with respect and humanity.
Pochoda’s steady hand and sharp eye keep all of her characters moving swiftly and gracefully through the variegated L.A. landscape.
Ambitious, absorbing. . . . Pochoda paints southern California with a vibrant brush, rendering an evocative landscape on which her desperate characters seek out redemption and rejuvenation.
A dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California. . . . Impossible to put down. . . . It’s the memorable characters and beautiful prose that make the novel so successful. . . . Unexpected and pitch-perfect.
Wonder Valley seethes with the vivid, searching idea of southern California. But as the intersecting journeys of hippie acolytes, restless hoods, lost boys and all manner of runaways converge, Pochoda enacts an aching dream of home that will possess and haunt you.
A vision of Southern California that is at once panoramic and intimate. . . . This novel paints an unforgettable portrait of people who long, above all else, for community and connection.
Ambitious, absorbing. . . . Pochoda paints southern California with a vibrant brush, rendering an evocative landscape on which her desperate characters seek out redemption and rejuvenation.
Pochoda is a masterful storyteller. . . . [She’s] come up with a harmonious narrative that showcases the human condition, full of ecstasy, angst, rage, and beauty.
Pochoda is a master. . . . It’s not a far stretch to consider Pochoda to be in company of James Ellroy, Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker. . . . It wouldn’t be a big surprise to find Wonder Valley on the short list for several awards.
Audacious. . . . Each character is realized with vivid empathy. . . . A richly Californian novel, drenched in enough sunlight to illuminate the harshest of truths.
Enthralling. . . . A compassionate look at the displaced that treats each with respect and humanity.
Ambitious, absorbing. . . . Pochoda paints southern California with a vibrant brush, rendering an evocative landscape on which her desperate characters seek out redemption and rejuvenation.
A dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California. . . . Impossible to put down. . . . It’s the memorable characters and beautiful prose that make the novel so successful. . . . Unexpected and pitch-perfect.
Wonder Valley is destined to be a classic L.A. novel. From desert scrub to cold blue sea, it carries an eloquent yet hard-edge take on the contradictions of a place so difficult to define. It’s impossible to put down.
09/18/2017
Pochoda’s third novel (after Visitation Street) uses a 2010 traffic jam as the springboard for an exploration of the rootless existence of marginal SoCal lives. Stuck in traffic, Tony, a married lawyer, spots a naked man streaking between cars and becomes obsessed with finding out who he is. Readers also meet Ren, a young man just out of juvie in Brooklyn who has come to L.A. to reconnect with his absent mother, who is living in Skid Row, and Blake, a drifter searching for the woman who killed his traveling companion several years ago. The novel then jumps back to 2006, when Britt, a young tennis player running from a tragic mistake, ends up at a ranch in Twentynine Palms presided over by a charismatic healer. There, Britt becomes involved with the healer’s teenaged twin sons, who go on to two different destinies. Toggling back and forth, the narrative eventually shows how events in the past affect the present, then brings the characters together as each enacts one last desperate attempt at self-salvation. Pochada has written a novel alive with empathy for the dispossessed and detailed descriptions of the California landscape, with a little of the film Crash thrown in. But as sympathetic as the characters are, their stories fail to come together as a dramatic whole. (Nov.)
A dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California. . . . Impossible to put down. . . . It’s the memorable characters and beautiful prose that make the novel so successful. . . . Unexpected and pitch-perfect.
Incandescent… Pochoda keeps you guessing while bringing these lost souls wonderfully, intensely alive.
09/15/2017
During 2006–10, a disparate cast of characters converges in the streets of Los Angeles and the desert outside the city. This is not the glamorous L.A. of Hollywood, palm trees, and swimming pools. Instead, we follow a young man recently released from juvenile detention in search of his mother who has become homeless; a dubious spiritual leader, his family, and a collection of college-age "interns" inhabiting a communal chicken farm; a pair of criminals on the lam; and a corporate lawyer having an existential crisis. All are connected to a bizarre incident on the freeway in ways that are not apparent until at least 70 pages in, with the nonlinear time line and lack of a central character making it somewhat challenging to get a grasp of the story and its forward momentum. VERDICT Despite the initial confusion, Pochoda (Visitation Sheet) takes readers places they don't often see with authenticity and clarity. Her description of the daily lives of the urban homeless is particularly vivid and sympathetic. Each of the main characters does achieve some sort of peace or resolution by the dark and often violent book's end. [See Prepub Alert, 5/15/17.]—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
