List Price: $19.95 Details

Save: $2.76 (14%)

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime & FREE Returns

FREE delivery Sunday, July 3 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Friday, July 1. Order within 1 hr 3 mins

In Stock.

[{"displayPrice":"$17.19","priceAmount":17.19,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"19","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Hy5V7gmeNSMZHPeBt4%2Bfz6SPFGlBExr0czQnG%2FdMh%2FH3LlJILKDGmaN51pGrWKA%2BmojJ5V9i%2FHhYmyXhuviRi7PsdRmLqI4wiggblkO78XEntIAogbPFPT5QxG1xn19vbn8gwVh33eM%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$7.02","priceAmount":7.02,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"02","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Yn4UUkJETEFrd99yjbjfLbvZJSNfYi14EGgwyI3eigZZnjG574NQ3SdJh5aFrD44%2FBzOWWAYyq3LVrDoqnKpkMa1zCdlMhVMLKEwu%2BRpK8oAwgLH6i36ebdTmsZrwjvdFGW1lo%2FmC%2FrVYXBJhvWCVVnPT4HV1svvONnvowBHghywdET8Du7QLcShwICk%2Bhu8","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$17.19 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Return policy: Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Wednesday, July 6 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Jenson Books Inc

Fulfilled by Amazon

Share

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$13.17
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: GreenIceMedia

Added

Not added

$20.64
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: Book Depository US

Added

Not added

$18.43
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: SuperBookDeals---

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the Author

Cynthia Kadohata

In the Heart of the Valley of Love (California Fiction) Paperback – April 14, 1997

by Cynthia Kadohata (Author)

5 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$5.73

—

$3.99

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.19

$13.16

$1.31

Enhance your purchase

"An apocalyptic picture of America on the brink of civil disorder and social collapse. . . . The writing is lucid and finely honed, often lyrical and occasionally magical."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Cynthia Kadohata explores human relationships in a Los Angeles of the future, where rich and poor are deeply polarized and where water, food, and gas, not to mention education, cannot be taken for granted. There is an intimate, understated, even gentle quality to Kadohata's writing—this is not an apocalyptic dystopia—that makes it difficult to shrug off the version of the future embodied in her book.

Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of California Press
Publication date

April 14, 1997
Dimensions

6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0520207289
ISBN-13

978-0520207288
See all details

Frequently bought together

+

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Choose items to buy together.

by Cynthia Kadohata Paperback
$17.19
Get it as soon as Sunday, Jul 3 FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
by Basma Abdel Aziz Paperback
$15.95
Get it as soon as Sunday, Jul 3 FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Gregory Claeys
19
Paperback
18 offers from $20.98
Octavia E. Butler
8,068
Paperback
31 offers from $7.98
Rivers Solomon
1,332
Paperback
12 offers from $8.44
Basma Abdel Aziz
103
Paperback
80 offers from $1.65
Edward Bellamy
93
Paperback
12 offers from $3.00
Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
141
Paperback
4 offers from $12.95

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An apocalyptic picture of America on the brink of civil disorder and social collapse. . . . The writing is lucid and finely honed, often lyrical and occasionally magical." -- Michiko Kakutani, ― New York Times

""Kadohata's finely wrought prose creates haunting pictures." ― Washington Post

"A chilling vision of the 21st century, conceived with prescient imagination and rendered in lean, evocative prose that blossoms into stunning images. ,. . . As timely as this week's news, yet with the enduring value of literature, this novel speaks simply but eloquently of the human spirit's capacity to survive. ― Publishers Weekly

"Kadohata is masterful in her evocation of physical, spiritual, and cultural displacement. . . . The message of this marvelous though often painful book is that our capacity to feel deep emotion—our own and others's—just might bind us together, and save us from ourselves." ― Los Angeles Times

"Kadohata manages with lean, uncomplicated prose to tell a remarkable story of love and redemption, with characters who are credible and sympathetic." ― Chicago Tribune

"Recommended as an effective depiction of what the future might hold." ― Library Journal

"A beautifully crafted novel that warns and hurts and delights." ― Kirkus Reviews

"This remarkable novel, set in 2052, imagines a Los Angeles in which class and economic inequities are heightened and resources have grown scarce. It’s not dystopia that interests Kadohata, however, but survival: the various ways we get along." ― Alta: Journal of Alta California

About the Author

Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Peace Award and PEN America Award winner Weedflower, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; First edition (April 14, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520207289
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520207288
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,029,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,498 in Asian Myth & Legend
- #10,039 in Coming of Age Fantasy (Books)
- #13,712 in Literary Criticism & Theory

Customer Reviews:
5 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Cynthia Kadohata

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

As a child, Cynthia Kadohata’s biggest life goal was not to be a writer. It was to own a dog. Since then, she has had six rescue dogs as her best friends. And, she has been extremely fortunate to have mostly worked as a writer during her adult life. She is the author of ten children’s books, including Kira-Kira, winner of the Newbery Medal; The Thing About Luck, winner of the National Book Award; Weedflower, winner of the Jane Addams Peace Award; Cracker, winner of six state awards as voted on by kids; A Place to Belong, longlisted for the National Book Award; and the upcoming Saucy, about a piglet like millions of others, yet also TOTALLY herself.

Customer reviews

5 star		61%
4 star		39%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

yoyo Mom

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

Kadohata has a nice touch.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

J

Wonderful. Need kindle version ASAP!

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

Loved this. Need it on Kindle please!!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2013

Verified Purchase

Why is this not available on kindle? No less polished than any of Ms. Kadohata's more recent work. Deserves a wider audience. Dystopian / post apocalyptic fans will love this. Extremely well written. No waste. Ms. Kadohata, is there more where this came from?

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Like Riddley Walker, this is a book for our century.

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2001

Except it has a much quieter voice.
This isn't your usual post-disaster novel. I wouldn't even call it science fiction. There's no enabling device or novum or whatever Darko Suvin calls it. I suppose it is what I would term 'speculative' fiction. What I would call it is beautiful.
Francie is a Japanese-American girl drifting pretty aimlessly in 2052. She lives in Los Angeles, quite frequently she goes out into the desert with her aunt's boyfriend on a semi-legit trading trip.
The government sounds like it's in trouble, there are rich parts of town where life is continuing pretty much as normal, but most people live in cramped apartments and make do with semi-legit work and collecting and selling whatever they can find: sliding doors, clothes, plants. Someone's going to want it. You are allocated water and gas chits, anyone can go to college, it's something that you do more to give you something to do than anything else, a community center of sorts.
Everyone feels aimless, like something's just happened or someone's just died and you're in shock and don't know what to do about it. The thing that makes this book so wonderful is the depth of Francies voice and the observations she makes. Francie's narrative is detached... but she and the reader both know that she's looking for something, that there must be something that means something, for her to find.
I devoured this book because I loved the simplicity and subjectivity of Francie's voice... such an quiet and individual view of the destination our century is taking us toward is rare. Most speculative fiction that deals with a post-distaster or post-government theme is fairly didactic. There are things to be said and points to be made and people to be convinced. Kadahota's not interested in any of that. She's just written a story about a young woman in the city and the desert who's trying to make sense of her life, but the subjectivity of the narrative reveals the political and social upheaval of Francie's world in such a subtle and believable way that this book convinced me of many things when other, more didactic fiction has failed me.
If there are three things I'm interested in they are: People's responses to their landscapes, coming of age stories and post-disaster fiction. This book fulfullied all those needs as if I'd written it myself, or willed it into existence upon the shelf of my local library. The book is tied together well with a more central purpose for Francie than just finding 'meaning'. Her uncle goes missing in the desert, perhaps he has been arrested maybe he just disappeared, and Francie's narrative and coming of age experience seem to have been sparked by this event, it becomes a central concern.
The thing that made me laugh and cry the most in this book was how superstitious Francie is, she thinks plants have feelings, she carries a twig and stone around in her pocket to represent her dead parents, she writes her name on pieces of paper and throws them into the wind on the side of the highway. Just to let the world know she's there.
We all find ways of coping. But few are as telling and touching as Francie's in In the Heart Of the Valley of Love. I've only just found it and already, it's out of print.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Colin

Only *realistic* futuristic novel I've read

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2001

Most sci-fi books seem to re-hash the same stuff that's been around since the 30s: robots, colonizing other planets, alien invaders, etc. Sometimes that can still make for a good book-- I liked most of Isaac Asimov's robot books for instance-- but usually they just end up resembling mediocre Star Trek episodes. William Gibson injected a little newness with his focus on computers, but there's only so much cyber-slang I can take before it too dissolves into standard sci-fi fare; concerned more with the gadgets and psuedo-science than with any of the characters or storyline.
"In the Heart of the Valley of Love" falls into none of these traps. It's really much more of a regular novel than anything you'd find sitting in the Science Fiction/Fantasy rack. It's set in LA in the second half of the 21st century-- a "dystopian" LA if you really want-- but even though this may sound a lot like Blade Runner and it's many clones, the author avoids stocking her LA with flying cars, androids, or spaceships. The technology isn't really any further along than it is today actually, and because of this Cynthia Kadohata earns my eternal respect. I don't know why it's so hard for sci-fi authors to restrain themselves when they try to imagine what we'll all be using in the future, but I guess that's what the customers pay for. Everyone wants the flying cars and warp travel, but here we are in 2001 and I still drive to work.
Maybe it's closer to the Mad Max movies than anything else, but instead of a world blasted back into the Stone Age, it's more of a portrait of a society that's going downhill. Her understated style of prose brings far more of a sense of dread and paranoia than anything Stephen King tries to shock you with. It really feels like the main character is a product of her decaying society, that she keeps her sentences short and to the point so as not to make any trouble, to keep a low profile. Most of the characters talk and act like they have a protective wall around them, that they've been dulled to the misery around them, too scared to show any true feelings. One of the best parts of the book are these people sarcastically referred to as "chirps" who try to compensate by trying to be sunshine happy all the time.
I highly recommend giving "In the Heart of the Valley of Love" a look.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful