“Loved this. What a great read and respite from poetry.” —Dorianne Laux, finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize
From the Publisher: “Told in alternating points of view, The Proprietor’s Song follows Innkeeper Stanley Uribe, tucked high up in California’s Sierras, as he tries to unravel the mysterious death of his sister Lorna, and Grace and Elwood Fisher, a comfortable, middle-aged couple from the Bay Area, who return every year to Death Valley where their son Jared disappeared over spring break. At its core, The Proprietor’s Song is a novel about devastating grief and renewed hope, all set among some of California’s most remote and haunting landscapes…”
More info About the Author: “An avid hiker, swimmer, and bicyclist, (Pitt graduate!)Janet Goldberg spends her spare time in California’s mountains and deserts. Her novel The Proprietor’s Song (Regal House, 2023) is set in the Eastern Sierras and Death Valley. She has a short story collection, Like Human, coming out in Fall 2025, from Cornerstone Press, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.”
Author Site “Janet Goldberg writes so powerfully of loss and grief. We follow the crooked paths of people left stumbling behind those who have gone on (a son, a sister) until we recognize our own intimate irresolvable journey in theirs. The author manages to say the unsayable. A truly original and effervescent writer.” —Stephanie Cowell, American Book Award recipient, author of Claude & Camille and The Boy in the Rain
“Goldberg’s poetic descriptions of Death Valley, its alluring and treacherous landscape, set the tone for The Proprietor’s Song, a subtle novel about grief, mortality, hope, and despair.” —Fredrick Soukup, author of Bliss and Blood Up North
Where was your favorite place to hang out during your time at Pitt?
There was a breakfast joint on Forbes that served the best buckwheat pancakes and endless coffee. Most mornings I’d down a stack, and that usually held me until dinner. I also drank a lot of beer at Hemingway’s. Backroom poetry readings were held there, and creative writing students and professors all shared pitchers while people read at the mic. Funny, I don’t like beer anymore; pancakes though still make me think fondly of my Pitt days.
What was unique about the Pitt writing program when you were there?
Ed Ochester and Lynn Emanuel for poetry and Chuck Kinder and Eve Shelnutt for fiction—all talented and kind professors. I also worked with Backspace, the student-run literary magazine at the time, and then started an independent literary magazine, Round & Catch, with a Pitt classmate. Now I edit fiction for Deep Wild, a journal that publishes literature about the wilderness.
What was the inspiration for writing your novel The Proprietor’s Song?
Twofold. Certainly California’s mountain and desert landscape inspired me, serving as the backdrop to the novel’s core issue—coping with loss, especially when a loved one dies or goes missing and there are no clear-cut answers as to why. My younger sister died unexpectedly in her mid-thirties, and I can’t say that the eventual explanation for what happened to her provided any real closure. Rather, it just haunted me. You may think knowing is better than not knowing, that knowing will bring closure, but closure may just be a myth.
You mentioned the California landscape. Can you say more about the importance of place in your writing?
The Proprietor’s Song explores the extreme connection some people have with the natural world. For some it leads to rebirth whereas for others it’s a place to fear. In my forthcoming short story collection, Like Human (Cornerstone Press, Fall 2025), characters sometimes are victims of place, whether they’re lulled by the illusion of safety in suburbia or are threatened by predators in the natural world.
Given your novel’s title, does music play an important role in The Proprietor’s Song?
Yes. In fact, in the novel, motel-owner Stanley Uribe refers to a set of bells on the office door jangling each time a guest checks in or checks out, and this serves as a metaphor for how we enter and leave this world. We’re all guests in a manner of speaking, aren’t we? But there’s more. Also included are song lyrics and a discussion of them, a James Wright poem, and material delivered in the form of newspaper articles. Brief quotes from Moby Dick, Dracula, and A Room with a View appear too. In this respect, The Proprietor’s Song might fall into the realm of an epistolary novel.
For more about Janet and The Proprietor’s Song, check out janetgoldberg.com!
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