Ariel Delgado Dixon

Two sisters unite to survive a traumatic upbringing—from absentee parents to a wilderness camp for troubled teens—in this “relentless and spooky” (Joy Williams) debut from an essential new voice. “When the Juvenile Transportation Services come for you in the night in a preordained kidnapping, complete with an unmarked van and husky guardsmen you can’t outmatch, you have been sold for a promise.” A young woman thinks she has escaped her past only to discover that she’s been hovering on its edges all along: She and her younger sister bide their time in a dilapidated warehouse in a desolate town north of New York City; their parents settled there with dreams of starting an art commune. But after the girls’ father vanishes, all traces of stability disappear for the family, and the girls retreat into strange worlds of their own mythmaking and isolation. As the sisters both try to survive their increasingly dark and dangerous adolescences, they break apart and reunite repeatedly, orbiting each other like planets. Both endure stints at the Veld Center, a wilderness camp where troubled teenage girls are sent as a last resort, and both emerge more deeply warped by the harsh outdoor survival experiences they must endure and the attempts by staff to break them down psychologically. With a mesmerizing voice and uncanny storytelling style, this is a remarkable debut about two women who must struggle to understand the bonds that link them and how their traumatic history will shape who they choose to become as adults.

A Novel

Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

Two sisters unite to survive a traumatic upbringing—from absentee parents to a wilderness camp for troubled teens—in this “relentless and spooky” (Joy Williams) debut novel from an essential new voice. “A story that’s so weird, it has to be true. . . . Keeps our attention in a chokehold.”—The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Good Housekeeping “When the Juvenile Transportation Services come for you in the night in a preordained kidnapping, complete with an unmarked van and husky guardsmen you can’t outmatch, you have been sold for a promise.” A young woman thinks she has escaped her past only to discover that she’s been hovering on its edges all along: She and her younger sister bide their time in a dilapidated warehouse in a desolate town north of New York City; their parents settled there with dreams of starting an art commune. But after the girls’ father vanishes, all traces of stability disappear for the family, and the girls retreat into strange worlds of their own mythmaking and isolation. As the sisters both try to survive their increasingly dark and dangerous adolescences, they break apart and reunite repeatedly, orbiting each other like planets. Both endure stints at the Veld Center, a wilderness camp where troubled teenage girls are sent as a last resort, and both emerge more deeply warped by the harsh outdoor survival experiences they must endure and the attempts by staff to break them down psychologically. With a mesmerizing voice and uncanny storytelling style, this is a remarkable debut about two women who must struggle to understand the bonds that link them and how their traumatic history will shape who they choose to become as adults.

A gripping, propulsive novel about succession, sex, and revenge on a California marijuana farm

“Deliciously written and compulsively readable . . . As the ex-lovers of a missing weed farmer grapple for control of her land and harvest, they contend with the force of her presence and the complexities of their own pasts.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties

Sapphire and her farm, Sourland, are fixtures of Northern California’s rugged wilderness, offering refuge to rejects, rebels, and outcasts—anyone willing to work and learn. But the haven Sapphire has built is fractured when she suddenly goes missing, her scorched truck abandoned on a mountain road.

Frankie, a disgraced ballerina and Sapphire’s former girlfriend and right-hand woman, returns to Sourland, claiming ownership of the farm. When she arrives, Frankie finds that Fizz—Sapphire’s most recent lover, an ex–baseball player with a preternatural green thumb—has already begun prepping Sourland for its biggest harvest yet.

As the two grapple for power, the farm’s fate hangs in the balance, and with it, the future Fizz and Frankie each covet for themselves. Past demons and scorned admirers remain hauntingly close, while the specter of Sapphire looms over the farm: in cryptic notes, in bud-tender gossip, in every blade of grass and whorl of smoke.

A brilliantly constructed novel of desire and betrayal, Sourland sparkles with the beauty and grime of the California woods. Dixon’s novel warns that our true nature catches up to us all—no matter how far we run.

Sourland

After its matriarch's disappearace, two rival successors fight for control of a California weed farm in this visceral novel about whether we can ever outrun our true natures Most weed farms in Humboldt don’t last more than a season, but there was always Sourland. And where there was Sourland, there was Sapphire. Hidden in the woods of Garberville, her farm was a haven for wayward souls—rebel college kids, down on their luck townsfolk, rejects, neo-hippies, eco punks—anyone willing to work. Sapphire took them in and offered them a place to live and learn. Everything changes one weekend when Sapphire dissapears, her scorched truck found days later deep in the woods. Frankie, a hypercompetent, disgraced ex-ballerina and Sapphire's old girlfriend, returns to the farm and says that Sapphire promised her control of the land. When she arrives, she finds that Fizz—Sapphire's most recent lover—an ambitious former baseball player with a preternatural green thumb and colorful past, has already begun preparing Sourland for another harvest season. The farm’s fate hangs in the balance, and with it, the promise of the future Fizz and Frankie each once imagined for themselves. But their past demons remain hauntingly close, threatening to destroy the tenuous lifeline that control over the Sourland would offer them. And all the while, the specter of Sapphire looms over the farm: in cryptic notes, in the garden harvest, in every blade of grass and piece of dirt. A brilliantly constructed novel of intention, memory, and betrayal, Sourland sparkles with the beauty and grime of the California woods. Dixon's novel is about how our pasts, mistakes and true natures catch up to us all—despite our best intentions.

Ariel Delgado Dixon

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