In November 2018 Eloise and Lewis rent a car in Las Vegas and take off on a two-week road trip across the American southwest. While wildfires rage, the married couple make their way through Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah, tracing the course of the Colorado River, the aquatic artery on which the Southwest depends for survival. Lewis, an artist working for a prominent land art foundation, is grieving the recent death of his mother, while Eloise is an academic researching the past and future of the Colorado River as it threatens to run dry.
Over the course of their trip, Eloise, beginning to suspect she might be pregnant, helplessly witnesses Lewis's descent as he struggles to find a place for himself in the desert where he never quite felt at home.
Elegy, Southwest is a novel which entwines a tragic love story with an intelligent and profound consideration of the way we now live alongside environmental breakdown; an elegy for lost love and for the landscape that makes us.
PRAISE FOR ELEGY, SOUTHWEST
'told with a voice that just aches. In this grim, wise and yearning book, Madeleine Watts takes us on a road trip for the end times.' - Ronnie Scott, author of Shirley
