Visitation Street - Hardcover

Pochoda's use of third person multiple point of view serves to paint a unique portrait of a community drawn together and pulled apart by grief, while at the same time creating a fully realized emotional arc for each primary character. In another turn from the traditions of the mystery genre, the novel's thick description and lush prose invite readers to steep in the heady elixir of the dockside neighborhood. * The Rumpus * The dealings with the tragedy within the first few chapters, reminded me so much of Twin Peaks . . . with Pochoda's clever prose, it soon becomes evident that between each of the characters there lays a gulf of isolation . . . Pochoda's prose and storytelling skill has managed with a clear and beautiful tact, to turn the town of Red Hook into the most fascinating character within the book. This makes the story both enchanting and tangible. * Huffington Post * A terrific story in the vein of Dennis Lehane's fiction. * Kirkus * Worth seeking out... a writer to watch * Shortlist * Intoxicating. . . . Reading VISITATION STREET, imbued as it is with mystery and danger, I am utterly convinced that Pochoda is herself a medium, capable of communicating across boundaries real and imagined, across noisy courtyards and over rough waves. She is simply too good at hearing voices--and sharing them--for that not to be the case. * Emma Straub * VISITATION STREET immersed me completely in the neighbourhood of Red Hook, and brought its inhabitants to life in a beautiful, haunting, and thought-provoking crime novel. Ivy Pochoda brings forth the full palette of human emotions in this gripping urban drama, a story that hurts you on one page and gives you hope on the next. A marvellous novel. * Michael Koryta, author of So Cold the River * Skilful... nuanced... Ms. Pochoda aspires to join female suspense novelists - among them, Tana French, Laura Lippman and Kate Atkinson - who are arguably writing more serious genre fiction than their male counterparts. -- ALEXANDER NAZARYAN * New York Times * VISITATION STREET explores a community's response to tragedy with crystalline prose, a dose of the uncanny, and an unblinking eye for both human frailty and resilience. Pochoda's vivid portrait of grief, hope, and redemption lends power to the small moments of grace and beauty that may be found in the wake of loss. Marvellous. * Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches * A powerfully beautiful novel * New York Times Book Review * Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda's voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it's indelibly her own. * Dennis Lehane *

Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue collar neighbourhood where hipster gourmet supermarkets push against tired housing projects, and the East River opens into the bay. Bored and listless, fifteen-year-old June and Val are looking for some fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay. But out on the water, as the bright light of day gives way to darkness, the girls disappear. Only Val will survive, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds. June's shocking disappearance will reverberate in the lives of a diverse cast of Red Hook residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, trolls for information about the crime. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father's murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect - although an elusive guardian seems to have other plans for him. As Val emerges from the shadow of her missing friend, her teacher Jonathan, Juilliard drop-out and barfly, will be forced to confront a past riddled with tragic sins of omission. In VISITATION STREET, Ivy Pochoda combines intensely vivid prose with breathtaking psychological insight to explore a cast of solitary souls, pulled by family, love, and betrayal, who yearn for a chance to escape, no matter the cost.