Valley Fever: A Novel

by Katherine Taylor

Overview

Ingrid Palamede never returns to the places she’s lived. For her, “whole neighborhoods, whole cities, can be ruined by the reasons you left.” But when a breakup leaves her heartbroken and homeless, she’s forced to return to her childhood home of Fresno, California. Back in the real wine country, where grapes are grown for mass producers, Ingrid must confront her aging parents and their financial woes, soured friendships, and the blissfully bad decisions she made in her past. But along the way, she unearths her love for the land, her talent for harvesting grapes, and a deep fondness for and forgiveness of the very first place she ever left.

“An elegant, restrained stylist” (The New York Times Book Review), Katherine Taylor turns her keen eye to high-class, small-town life among the grapes—on the vine, or soaked in vodka—in this blisteringly funny, ferociously intelligent, and deeply moving novel of self-discovery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250097248
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	10/11/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Katherine Taylor is the author of Rules for Saying Goodbye. She lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

Valley Fever goes straight to the heart of it: How are we supposed to live? How do we jump through those hoops of fire known as love and work and family, and hopefully emerge with body and soul more or less intact? Or even-dare I say it-come through with some measure of peace in ourselves? Katherine Taylor's unflinching novel takes on the big stuff, and does so with an empathy and insight that reward the closest reading. This superb book succeeds on every level.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

“In Katherine Taylor's stirring and sneakily capacious novel, what begins as a family romance widens out to be nothing less than a portrait of the knotty, complicated relationship between land and the people who make it their life's work to nurture and sometimes exploit it. Heartbreak comes in the form of relentless heat, ravaging dust, and a perfect grape left to wither on the vine, and the undoing of a once proud family vineyard becomes as potent a tale of love and betrayal as any I've recently read. Taylor's prose is sharp, rueful, hilarious, and crackling with life. Her characters' raw, unsentimental affairs with one another and with the earth they till will stay with you long after you've left the book's pages behind.” —Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin

“Meet Ingrid Palamede, the devastated and devastatingly funny heroine of Katherine Taylor's spectacular Valley Fever. An enthralling examination of how our past mistakes both haunt us and hold the key to our freedom, a sage meditation on how the landscapes we dwell in shape our inner lives, this is a fearless and winning novel. Drink it up.” —Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me

“Taylor (Rules for Saying Goodbye, 2007) evokes the rich textures and rhythms of California's Central Valley in this lush novel of inheritance, family, and betrayal . . . [Vally Fever is] a profound novel about forces that can nurture or break the strongest connections.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

04/27/2015
With crisp, often droll prose, Taylor (Rules for Saying Goodbye) has written an affecting second novel, set in California’s Central Valley. Ingrid Palamede, a daughter who departed her home town when she was young, returns to her parents’ vineyard after a crushing breakup, under the guise of helping her ailing father with his business. Effortlessly woven in are various threads of Fresno local color that make up a landscape of love and tension: a high school boyfriend whose touch lingers, an ex–best friend who worms her way back into Ingrid’s heart, an employee who is stealing from her father. The lulls of domestic ennui and nostalgia are broken up by Ingrid’s sharp and humorous observations about life and the inevitable confrontation of adulthood. A breezy family saga, this story is also an ode to the decline of the valleys of California, with all their rustic beauty and hazy disenchantment. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2015
Ingrid Palamede, a journalist who has traveled around the world, swears she doesn't return to the places she has lived, but here she is back at home in Fresno, CA, on her parent's vineyard after a breakup with yet another man of her dreams. When Ingrid's father, Ned, becomes ill, she takes over management of his property and grape sales. Taylor (The Rules for Saying Goodbye) pulls readers into the story with charming details. Ingrid's mother, Evelyn, spends most of her days eating soft-boiled eggs and playing solitaire at the kitchen table. She relies on the hotel soaps and slippers brought home during a time when the farm prospered and she could afford to travel. Uncle Felix, who drinks wine with every meal, constantly haggles over the price of grapes for his "nice" but inexpensive wine. Annie, Ingrid's sister, who has a troubled marriage, voices a cow character in a popular children's cartoon. The Palamede family is trying to stay steady in a world that is unstable. VERDICT This story is rich with sensory details. Readers can feel the heat and humidity of the California summer. Taylor brings the scent of the harvest to the table with wonderful descriptions of meals that include grapes, figs, pistachios, almonds, and wine. This is a novel to lose yourself in.—Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Library Journal

2015-03-21
Taylor (Rules for Saying Goodbye, 2007) evokes the rich textures and rhythms of California's Central Valley in this lush novel of inheritance, family, and betrayal. Ingrid, who believes "all existential problems are solved when you're driving somewhere," narrates her return to her family's 20,000-acre farm in Fresno after her latest breakup. She's spent the decade since college in New York, London, and Los Angeles in a series of failed relationships and needs somewhere to begin again. Her father, Ned, who inherited his first hundred acres, has spent a lifetime buying and cultivating the best soil. Now he presides over Palamede Farms with "something beyond affection for the grapes…something much closer to love." But "no farmer ever wants another to do well," and love may not be enough to keep the farm going. Ned's daughters, Ingrid and her sister, Annie, a Los Angeles voice-over actress, help each other through heartaches while also discovering what very different adults they are. The sisters share a complicated relationship with their fiercely protective mother, who is hostile to almost everyone outside their family. One of the few outsiders she trusts is her husband's best friend, Felix, a successful vineyard owner who also makes wine by buying grapes from other farmers. When Ned's long-standing cough worsens, Ingrid settles in to help run the farm, tangling with Felix to make good on his promise to buy Palamede's harvest. The picking season's vivid drama is rendered through descriptions of the changing grapes as Ingrid waits for Felix to pick them before they lose their value; one day, they are "plummy and tart, but too taut yet." Meanwhile, Ingrid reunites with her estranged best friend, Bootsie, and George Sweet, the man many thought she would marry if her mother had approved. A profound novel about forces that can nurture or break the strongest connections.

Kirkus Reviews