Desert Creatures

In a future American West hollowed out by ecological decay, a girl named Magdala seeks a miracle cure for her clubfoot in the mythical city of Las Vegas, a place teeming with violent sinners and mysterious, magical saints. In this multi-part story spanning decades of her life, she travels through the desert--which is full of both surrealist horrors like formerly human chimeras, and more mundane dangers like bandits and death cults--and comes of age in a resource-starved world where faith seems both necessary and futile, in award-winning short fiction writer Kay Chronister's debut novel.