The Valley: A Void

by Vanessa Roveto

World-weary 19-year-old Madeline works part-time at Whole Foods and spends the rest of the time thinking her ‘important little thoughts,’ as her mother calls them. Her wildly isolated life uncannily mirrors that of disgraced poetry professor, Victoria. On converging paths, these desperately sad but hysterically funny heroines blunder through a landscape of grief, self-loathing, love, and pharmaceuticals. A tragicomic hallucination of two women trying not to disappear into the psychic phantasmagoria of their families, the void of the San Fernando Valley, and most urgently—themselves.

Genres: Fiction

173 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2023

About the author

Vanessa Roveto is a writer living in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Kenzy El-Mohandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Froyo and fragility remain alive and unwell in this hilarious and gutting novella. Vanessa Roveto gives a succinct and skillful window into recurring consciousness. Soaring above the Southern California ennui, "The Valley a void" delivers a concise and acute narrative about grief, love, and the slipperiness of writing about home. I devoured it!

[Maja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeg hadde med meg denne lille boken i teknovesken min i månedsvis, for den er den perfekte størrelsen, og passer godt til å lese noen sider når det passer. Hvis dystre, lesbiske poeter som vokser opp i LA er en sjanger, så er denne blant de beste.

[joe]

I picked this pocket-sized book up in a London bookshop after being recommended it by a passionate and attentive bookseller. I actively search for the underground literature and I make a purpose of pushing and bringing attention to independent press publications. I find that this is where you can mine out the real gems of creativity, and this is what I’ve found with this book.

We follow two narrators, who have very little affiliation or crossover within the book, but whose lives mirror one another in such an uncanny way as to allow the book to be carried by this mirroring. Madeline works at Whole Foods and Victoria is a poetry professor who has been disgraced into the ether of the educational world. Both of these troubled and struggling narrators have numerous thoughts on the world; on grief; on self-love and loathing; on medicine and the body; that they come full to the brim with personality and humour that can carry a book without any plot.

You don’t need an overly complicated plot, nor perhaps even a plot at all, if your characters hold a voice that feels engaging and real like the two characters here. Yes, they may be annoying for the majority of the book. There are particular moments that they say a certain something which reads too overly online, as though the author has heard the things being said before and is just pulling the language from the internet world. However, when you take a step back, this is how young people speak and how they manage and deal with the carious issues going on in the world today. Our words and our cadences mesh together in online spaces. We all begin to sound the same. We’re all annoying beyond belief at time, but there is a real element to having this conveyed in the book.

Where I think the book fails is not in the jarring nature of the characters, or in the plotless void that it situates itself in. Where it fails at certain moments for me is in providing a distinctive voice for the two narrators that manages to separate them. They are the carriers of this entire book and we rarely, if ever, leave the space between their ears, so to have them sound so similar for large portions of the book feels unimaginative, and lets down the book in its otherwise fresh uniqueness.

I found the ideas that this book floats around to be very exciting. The issues are also tackled in a way that feels modern and of its age. The book has many issues that will strike at certain readers and it will not be for everyone, but please do not ignore Vanessa Roveto over the next fews years. The ideas are what should be held onto.

[TIMONY · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book because when I flipped through, some very poetic phrases popped out and it was about LA so I was intrigued. However, I really disliked this book. It felt very self indulgent and just kind of rambled on. It was trying to be too many things at once; a novel, a collection of short stories, poetry, a monologue, a stage play, and also probably an autobiography? It was trying to be cooler than you, to be depressed and despondent and skinny and OH so LA vibe-y. I rolled my eyes more than I think I have with any other book. Even the pointed choice not to capitalize anything in some parts just made me groan. Despite how much I was not enjoying it, I forced myself to finish it because I kept thinking, "maybe the point will reveal itself?" and I still don't believe it really did.

It felt very much influenced by Francesca Lia Block, but if you took all of the glamour and magic out. The book had some vague narratives, but no real plot. The author loved to frequently and aggressively remind you that she is a lesbian (the author/the main character/characters, who all feel one and the same which gave a confusing muddled feeling to the whole book) but then she seems to really take issue with the fact that her father is gay? The same angsty points are being hit over and over but nothing progresses. I had to wonder if it was trying to be satire and I just missed it, because the whole thing feels like it was written after someone discovered "overheard LA" and decided to write a freestyle piece incorporating half the quotes.

Even reading the synopsis on this site makes my whole reading experience more confusing! Was that supposed to be what I was reading?! I did not find anything "hysterically funny" about this book.

[Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got just a bit more than halfway through this, and I cannot find a way to bring myself to finish it. I just don’t get it and I don’t think it’s for me, however I don’t think that means it is devoid of value. It fits into the genre of weird LA women making odd choices that I typically love, but it’s really challenging to follow any kind of a plot or give a shit about these characters.

[Anna Dorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is funny and devastating and perfect. Jen Beagin meets David Lynch. And I cried. I'll read everything Vanessa Roveto writes forever.

[Milo Feldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

woah! I loved this book. I think the hyper nihilistic, pessimistic descriptions of life in 2020 something LA were perfectly hilarious and depressing. roveto is an astute observational, creative writer. I think some of the plot lost me here but I enjoyed reading it regardless.