California : a novel /

SOME DYSTOPIAN NOVELS, like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," explore human relationships in dark, existential post-collapse scenarios, uninterested in either causes or solutions. Others engage with global warming head-on and imagine the possibilities beyond catastrophe, as in Margaret Atwood's ultimately optimistic MaddAddam trilogy. But there's a middle path too - one exemplified by Edan Lepucki's first novel, "California," in which characters traverse a cross-section of mid-collapse landscape, framed by the gradual decline of civilization. This approach may seem too optimistic given dire news about melting icecaps and acidic oceans, but it does allow for a reading of the novel as satire, skewering the elements of modern life that have brought us to this tipping point. Lepucki's main characters, the 20-somethings Frida Ellis and Calvin Friedman, live in a near-future in which the most privileged have withdrawn to communities (called Communities) defended by private security forces. The less fortunate - those of them who haven't died from the flu, anyway - eke out an existence in failing cities. Outliers in the wilderness include marauders known as Pirates and the enigmatic Spikes, who leave objects lying around that befit their name. Nowhere does "California" really explain what has happened to federal, state and local governments. Global warming is alluded to in a few paragraphs about unusual storm patterns, but it never seems to affect the book's settings. After fleeing Los Angeles, Frida and Cal have lived in the wilderness for two years, squatting in a house owned by a family that, for unknown reasons, committed suicide. The surrounding land is inviting, and neither Frida's nor Cal's chores are burdensome, giving both a lot of time for flashbacks about Frida's dead brother, Micah, who blew himself up in a mall after joining a terrorist group (called the Group). Frida the former baker and Cal the survivalist have very different comfort levels with the outdoors. An encounter with a porcupine sends Frida running home "crying like a kid." Cal is more knowledgeable, but in the long run not much better. Plank College, the live-off-the-land school where he met Micah (and thus Frida), may have taught him how to skin an animal and "forgive a room for its ugliness," but he struggles to recall how to build basic traps. When he finds himself missing "the sounds of large, gas-guzzling engines," he chalks it up to "lame nostalgia," which is dissonant to say the least - as if Marie Antoinette were nostalgic for the guillotine. Because the wilderness doesn't hold much threat, the book derives most of its tension from the friction that exists between Frida and Cal when they're not blissful in bed. Sometimes it's difficult to understand why they're arguing, though, and other times it's equally difficult to understand why they're not. For example: Even though Los Angeles is a hellhole where people inexplicably walk around "covered" in urine, Frida made Cal stay until she turned 27 so she could celebrate her birthday there. "Cal couldn't argue with that." Really, couldn't he? Later, Cal has a fit when Frida bakes bread for other people. Devices like iPhones may be dead, but what Cal calls Frida's "artifacts" hold talismanic appeal for her and provide another source of conflict - especially a turkey baster she tries to keep hidden from him. This "simple object to mark a before and an after" couldn't be less useful, even if Frida wonders whether "they might use it to try to get pregnant someday." Although Frida's smitten by the way the baster "inhaled and exhaled air," she eventually tries to give it away, leading to another fight when Cal learns she's been concealing it. "It was fun to have a secret," she explains, and he replies, "You think the baster will impress him, but it won't." Then she looks at Cal "like he was the lowest human being." Frida and Cal often seem much younger than their years. As it happens, they don't need the turkey baster to get pregnant; they're still able to do that the old-fashioned way. When the book opens, Frida is trying to figure out how to tell Cal she may be expecting a baby, and it is this basic imperative - the promise of new life in a collapsing world - that persuades the couple to quit their isolated home in search of other people. They have contact with the World Beyond through the peddler August, a thin black man who refers to himself as a "junkie" because he deals in junk (though he also has the "never-quite-faded desperation of a former addict"). Frida jokes with Cal that maybe August "knows a witch doctor" who can confirm her pregnancy. If the comment seems insensitive - or, O.K., racist - it's of a piece with the characters' generally fraught interactions with August, who likes to joke that he is "the last black man on earth." EVENTUALLY, FRIDA AND Cal (and the reader) learn that August works for the mysterious Spikes, who send him out on recon knowing people will defer to him both because he's black and because he's such a good listener. In one scene, he waits patiently in his horse-drawn carriage as Frida unloads the whole back story about Micah and, high on Vicodin, considers revealing her pregnancy. The encounter leads Frida and Cal to abandon the house at last and seek out the Spikes, in hopes of raising the baby in a community that's not one of the evil Communities. They find a maze of the Spikes' trademark spikes just a couple of miles away, prompting an art critique of these immense, labor-intensive, resource-sucking warning signs created over a period of four years by a few dozen people. Beyond lies the Land - inhabited by a group that's been infiltrated by the Group, which leads to more revelations about Micah. This is where Frida and Cal decide to settle down. But it's not entirely up to them: Like reality show contestants or House majority leaders, they must survive a Vote if they want to keep their place. Most of the second half of the novel involves their agonizing over whether to reveal the pregnancy, since it might influence this Vote. New secrets also emerge about Micah and the relationship between the Communities and the Land. Eventually, Frida and Cal are forced to flee over the obstacle course of an awkward and poorly written action scene. The last chapter of "California," with its emphasis on security over freedom, supports a reading in which Frida and Cal never had a chance, still unable to make the connection between the ills of a runaway consumer society and environmental devastation. Perhaps the world as we know it will indeed end this way for many Americans : terrified of porcupines, longing for the sound of S.U.V.s, unable to distinguish between an artifact and a keepsake, helped to find temporary sanctuary by the last black man on earth. If it does, we won't be able to say that "California" didn't warn us. In this imagined world, the privileged have private security forces; everyone else suffers. JEFF VANDERMEER'S novel "Acceptance," which concludes his Southern Reach trilogy, will be published in September.

The catalysts for the current wave of postapocalyptic novels are many, from financial collapse to climate change, yet the bludgeoned, class-stratified, post-tech worlds writers envision are eerily similar. Still, from this blasted landscape, imaginative stories of survival by writers such as Margaret Atwood and James Howard Kunstler flower. First-time novelist Lepucki steps gamely into this arena to tell the tale of Frida and Cal, an ardent couple who have fled decimated Los Angeles to try to live off the land. Their only human contact is with a mysterious itinerant trader until they eventually discover a family homesteading nearby and learn of a strange, labyrinthine border of towering spikes. What is this structure protecting? The perils are many, everyone is vulnerable, and there is no reliable information beyond that of the senses, emotions, and intellect. Lepucki's characters, therefore, must weigh every word, expression, and gesture. This results in too much disquisition through conversations, and the plot falters, but the settings are haunting and Lepucki's inquiry into the psychology of trust, both intimate and communal, is keen and compelling.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

In her suspenseful debut, Lepucki envisions a postapocalyptic America and the people left behind. After fleeing a decaying, ransacked Los Angeles to begin anew in the wilderness, married couple Cal and Frida are faced with dwindling supplies and an uncertain future. When Frida discovers she might be pregnant, the need to connect with other survivors becomes all the more imperative. The couple finds hope after stumbling upon a fortified rogue encampment in the woods with startling connections to Frida's past. That is, until unsettling aspects about the place-the absence of any children in the community, a despotic leader, and ties to an underground group linked to a suicide bombing, among other revolutionary acts-suggest Cal and Frida might be better off on their own. Though real-world parallels can be drawn regarding the circumstances of the world's decline and rebirth in the novel-"the Group" is like a mash-up of the Occupy Wall Street and Weather Underground movements; the sterile wealthier "Communities" clearly signify the 1%-Lepucki focuses on Cal and Frida's evolving relationship and their divergent approaches to their predicament. As seen in chapters told from their alternating perspectives, the less they trust each other, the more tension mounts, building to an explosive climax that few readers will see coming. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Two years ago, Frida and Cal made their way out of Los Angeles to live in seclusion, off the land, away from the violence of terrorists such as the Group, which tore the world apart, and the Communities, which cater to only the wealthiest clientele. They have adapted to their new lives, but when Frida becomes pregnant they worry for the safety of their unborn child. Not far from their cabin is a settlement called the Land, which is purported to be unwelcoming to visitors. Despite their reservations, Frida and Cal make their way there, hoping to find assistance if not acceptance. What they discover is both surprising and unsettling. -VERDICT While this debut novel has some potential as a disturbing postapocalyptic thriller, it stumbles in its execution. The characters don't evoke a lot of sympathy and the ambiguous ending leaves readers hanging. [A July LibraryReads pick; Stephen Colbert promoted the book as a response to the Amazon--Hachette dispute (ow.ly/y71R0).-Ed.]-Karin Thogersen, Huntley Area P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The end of American civilization has come and gone, and a young married couple has fled Los Angeles to live in the wilderness in Lepuckis debut novel.Cal and Frida, alone in the woods, provide for themselvesbut once Frida becomes pregnant, finding more of civilizations refugees becomes important, especially since their only neighbors have committed suicide. They find an encampment surrounded by spikes and are invited to be candidates for the group. They will stay with the community, making friends and learning the ropes, until the other commune members vote on whether they should stay or leave. Soon they discover there are dangers even in this relatively secure place. They notice there are no children in the group, so they hide Fridas pregnancy. Other unsettling details emerge as the couple tries to win the commune overFrida by baking, Cal by serving as a member of the community counsel. The color red is forbidden. Surprisingly luxurious supplies arrivebut from where? The counsel is full of secrets, and the leader forbids Cal from sharing them with Frida. One character, thought to have died in a suicide bombing before Cal and Frida struck out for the wild, is miraculously alive at the commune, after the couple spent many pages grappling with his death. This is a misstep on Lepucki's part, showing the reader that she isnt above bending the rules, which makes it more difficult to feel real concern for Cal and Frida. They will never be in too much trouble; Lepucki wont allow it. The chapters alternate between Cals point of view and Fridas and are heavy on flashbacks that bog down an otherwise tense narrative of survival.This has the bones of an excellent book, but, sadly, an untenable amount of flab is covering them. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.