Against this backdrop, Nick DiChario's Valley of Day-Glo opens with the murder of Broadway Danny-Rose's father by his mother. The event is simultaneously hilarious and horrific, the scene beautifully executed. At one point, exemplifying the skewed humor on display and presaging a wild read, Broadway Danny-Rose notes that "Now, gazing down upon his lifeless body, I decided Father's final record was something close to 5,649 to one in his favor, for although Mother vis-à-vis the Tribal Bible had always managed to prove him wrong, he had never lost his life until now."

What follows is a hilarious and surreal quest, with Broadway Danny-Rose's mother determined to bring his father to the Valley of Day-Glo. As she puts it, "We must take your father to the place where death becomes life." Broadway Danny-Rose decides to accompany her, "carrying only the clothes on my back: a magenta button-down oxford shirt, a pair of navy blue Levi's Dockers, and my favorite penny loafers. These articles of clothing amounted to all my earthly possessions, after losing everything in the great sandstorm."

While on the journey, they encounter the Tribes of the Fetid Bank, the bloodthirsty S'hondowek'owa and a bone-outpost of the mysterious Adodar. Eventually, of course, they reach the object of their quest. Intermittently, Father returns from the dead to talk to Broadway Danny-Rose, only to get dead all over again. Throughout, also, various myths are told, ranging from the funny to the really odd. Taken as a whole, it constitutes a confident high-wire act by the author.

Surreal post-apocalyptic insanity

Absurdist fictions tread a fine line. If they try too hard to present three-dimensional characters, they lose the pacing and quickness needed to pull off such a difficult task. If they, on the other hand, make too much fun of their characters or present characters that are too flat, the absurdity isn't grounded in anything real. As important, good absurdism must be self-deprecating in a sense and must treat every human institution with similar suspicion. Finally, a great absurdist novel relies on fresh, uncliched images and should be, at times, biting rather than comfortable.

Valley of Day-Glo has all of these elements and is one of the most original and entertaining novels I've read so far this year. The narrator of the book, Broadway Danny-Rose, can be as incisive, silly, stupid, clever and observant as any of us, and a great deal of the charm here comes from his antics. The descriptions of the Valley of Day-Glo itself are strange in the best possible way and fully reward the reader for following Broadway Danny-Rose on his quest.

Some of this "business" shouldn't work—the Microwave Cookbook as a bible for the tribe?—and yet it does because DiChario is so adept at keeping a straight face throughout and because he has remarkable writing talent. You could argue that the middle of Valley of Day-Glo is a little long, that DiChario at times loves his own concepts a little too much, but it seems churlish to admonish a writer for taking chances and for displaying such a great imagination. DiChario can be compared to Kurt Vonnegut or early Douglas Adams, but he's pretty much sui generis. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward to his next one.