literary fiction

“All humans would eventually try anything to feel more than nothing.” Author: Venita Blackburn I came to Dead in Long Beach, California accidentally, through an Audible sampling that ran automatically after my previous book finished. The sample was only a few minutes, but I was hooked by the dark lyricism and the idea. In Dead in Long Beach, California Coral arrives with groceries at her brother’s apartment to find him dead, the result of suicide. She pockets his cellphone and then, as she devolves into complicated grief, starts answering his messages as though she were him. She talks to his girlfriend. [...]