Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel - Hardcover

Cranor, Jeffrey; Fink, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062351427 ISBN 13: 9780062351425

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2015

Synopsis

From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live.

"Hypnotic and darkly funny. . . . Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in."--The Guardian

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "KING CITY" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "KING CITY". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

About this title

Review:

""The book is charming and absurd - think "This American Life" meets "Alice in Wonderland."--Washington Post

"The hit podcast is absurd and hilarious, and as a book it's similarly entertaining..."--The Guardian

"Fink and Cranor's prose hints there's an empathetic humanity underscoring their well of darkly fantastic situations. . . . the book builds toward a satisfyingly strange exploration of the strange town's intersection with an unsuspecting real world."--Los Angeles Times

"Welcome to Night Vale lives up to the podcast hype in every way. It is a singularly inventive visit to an otherworldly town that's the stuff of nightmares and daydreams."--BookPage

"As a companion piece, "Welcome to Night Vale" will be hard to resist. Though the book builds toward a satisfyingly strange exploration of the strange town's intersection with an unsuspecting real world, its mysteries - like the richest conspiracy theories - don't exist to be explained. They just provide a welcome escape."--Detroit Free Press

"This is the novel of your dreams. . . . A story of misfit family life that unfolds along the side streets, back alleys and spring-loaded trap doors of the small town home you'll realize you've always missed living in. When it says 'welcome, ' it's mandatory. You belong here."--Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside

"Take Conan's Hyborea, teleport it to the American Southwest, dress all the warriors in business casual and hide their swords under the floorboards -- that's Night Vale: absurd, magical, wholly engrossing, and always harboring some hidden menace."--John Darnielle, author of Wolf in White Van

"Emotionally compelling and superbly realized. This seductive, hilarious book unfolds at the moment when certain quiet responsible people find they must risk everything on behalf of love, hope, and understanding. Not a single person who reads this book will be disappointed."--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution and Vacation

"As a fan of Welcome to Night Vale, Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink have delighted me with stories that are clever, twisted, beautiful, strange, wonderful, and sweet. This book does all of that and more. I think this might be the best book I've read in years."--Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind

"In their novelistic adaptation of the eerie yet comic landscape of Night Vale, Fink and Cranor have managed to create an excellent stand-alone book perfect for newcomers while also including plenty of winks to longtime fans..."--Shelf Awareness

Book Description:

From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves . . . no matter where we live. The Telegraph calls Night Vale a 'cultural phenomenon' and Time Out says it's 'as hilarious as it is macabre'. For fans of Stephen King, Serial, Twin Peaks and of course the number one iTunes podcast itself. Now a New York Times bestseller.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062351427
• ISBN 13: 9780062351425
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416