The New Valley: Novellas [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Josh Weil (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2009

The linked novellas that comprise Josh Weil’s masterful debut bring us into America’s remote, unforgiving backcountry, and delicately unveil the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.
Set in the hardscrabble hill country between West Virginia and Virginia, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices—from a soft-spoken beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad’s suicide; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls for a married woman intent on using him in a scheme that wounds them both—each novella is a vivid examination of Weil’s uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men struggle against grief, solitude, and fixation, their desperation leads them all to commit acts that bring both ruin and salvation.
Reminiscent of Bobbie Ann Mason, Annie Proulx, and Kent Haruf in its deeply American tone, The New Valley is a tender exploration of resilience, isolation, and the consuming ache for human connection. Weil’s empathetic, meticulous prose makes this is a debut of inescapable power.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Weil's debut is a stark and haunting triptych of novellas set in the rusted-out hills straddling the border between the Virginias. In Ridge Weather, Osby, a hardscrabble cattle rancher, finds himself lonely and isolated after his father's suicide. In the aftermath he struggles to make some sort of a personal connection in increasingly desperate attempts to be needed by someone. In Stillman Wing, the elderly Charlie Stillman, afraid of his own mortality, tries to reinvigorate his life by stealing and reconditioning a tractor, all the while maintaining a relationship with his obese, promiscuous daughter and coming to terms with the death of his barnstormer parents. Sarverville Remains, takes the form of a letter from Geoffrey Sarver, a mildly retarded orphan, to an incarcerated man whose wife he has fallen in love with, and takes on the elements of a well-told crime story. All three pieces, despite their somber tones, offer renewal for their protagonists. Taken individually, each novella offers its own tragic pleasures, but together, the works create a deeply human landscape that delivers great beauty. (June)
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From Booklist

A restive nobility binds the sorrowful protagonists of Weil’s stellar debut collection of novellas, each a tender anthem to a starkly unforgiving Virginia countryside and the misguided determination of its most forsaken residents. Whether driven by a persistent yearning for acceptance, a paralyzing sense of loss, or a plaintive slide into oblivion, three solitary men are eventually undone by the abject and overwhelming loneliness that comes when they are abandoned by a loved one. In “Ridge Weather,” an isolated cattle farmer grapples with unfamiliar independence in the aftermath of his father’s suicide, while “Stillman Wing” chronicles the inexorable decline of a once-vital man after his self-destructive daughter leaves home. The searingly poignant “Sarverville Remains” calls forth the mesmerizing voice of a slow-witted young man who is willfully caught in a diabolical love triangle. Throughout, Weil limns a rugged emotional landscape every bit as raw and desolate as the land that inspired it, delivering an eloquent portrait of people who defiantly cling to a fierce independence. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1St Edition edition (June 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802118917
• ISBN-13: 978-0802118912
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Josh Weil was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural Virginia, to which he returned to write the novellas in his first book, The New Valley (Grove, 2009), a recent New York Times Editor's Choice.

His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, New England Review, American Short Fiction, Narrative and other journals. He has been a regular contributor to The New York Times and written for Poets & Writers, Guernica, Orion, and Nylon Magazine. Since earning his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright Grant, fellowships and scholarships to the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences, a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Dana Award in Portfolio. As the 2009-2010 Tickner Writing Fellow, he will be the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland.

He currently divides his time between New York City and a cabin in southwestern Virginia, where he is at work on a novel.

If you have any questions -- whether about the novellas, book groups, or anything else -- Josh would love to hear from you. He can be reached through his website at www.joshweil.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars In Depth Character Studies...But Didn't Keep Me Engrossed, July 4, 2009

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Howard P. Grill - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Valley: Novellas (Kindle Edition)

The author certainly gets to the core of his characters and is able to let us see the world through their eyes and experience their emotions. In fact, one emerges 'feeling their world' as it were, which is a world that is certainly quite different from my own.

However, while the stories are satisfying and emotional, particularly the one about Stillman, I found them rather slow moving. This is particularly true of the last one, during which my interest was lost long before the ending. Definitely less grabbing than the other two. Nonetheless, I found myself wanting more than just seeing and feeling through the characters eyes. In short, I felt like there simply wasn't enough happening to really keep me wanting to continue through the stories.

I know this one got wonderful reviews from The NYT Book Review etc, and while I thought it was good, I just didn't find it to be THAT good. A solid three stars, at least that was what it did for me.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A BRILLIANT NEW TALENT, May 8, 2009

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R. Goolrick (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Valley: Novellas (Hardcover)

I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of Josh Weil's first book, and it is extraordinary. He is the real deal; a great writer with something to say about the intricate sadness and bravery and hopefulness of the human heart. Set in the hardscrabble country of Southwest Virginia, each of these three novellas is a gem, each different, each moving and involving and stunning in the simplicity and beauty of the language. Josh Weil is The Next Great Thing in American fiction. Don't miss it.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book of the spring, May 8, 2009

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Grant Barber (scituate, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Valley: Novellas (Hardcover)

This is the satisfying read of the spring. I have stacked next to me the Spivet book, and one about when Thoreau set fire to the woods around Concord, and another about a novelist in Iran in a struggle with his censor. Each is fine, and I'll get through them, plus the stack of other books that are there too, but this collection of novellas is what I was longing for...you just read it and can have a satisfied "yes" response. Have had similar reactions to the first novel I read by Rick Bass, and Jim Harrison, and McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses and Doig's Dancing at Rascal Creek, and Ron Carlson. Take the first novella: images, such as late spring snow, and sunset, a deserted house, cars driving in the distance worked into great, paced story telling. The main character of the novella is revealed as a complex flesh and blood guy, not some mopey sad sack, not some romantic heroic larger than life man-of-solitude, and yet he's more than just his singular life--seems to point to verities of living. Of all the books for this spring, this is the one I'll want to put in other's hands.