California, by Edan Lepucki

 

Set in the middle of this century, “California” spins a tale of an earth in flux. Droughts, super storms and climate shift have caused financial and environmental catastrophes that leave the 1% in “safe” enclaves while the rest scramble to eek out a life wherever they can, preferably out of the cities, preferably with like-minded souls that can provide a group illusion of safety and power.

 

Cal and Frida are a young couple who flee dry Los Angeles to build an existence in the woods, if not quite yet a life. Over time they find neighbors, and with them, stories of a nearby village. Unfriendly, uninterested in visitors.

 

It’s not until Frida realizes she’s pregnant that they see a change is necessary, and they have to at least plead their case to the village.

 

I do love me a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian tale, especially when I can find one that is mature, outside of the YA classification that often indicate a less literary approach. “California” fills the bill nicely. Set in the middle of crisis, memories of good times still linger in the minds of those building the new world and the distance between the haves and the have nots is close enough to still support intellectuals and activists trying to bridge the gap and bring down the corporate system.

 

There were a few too many coincidences, but the characters and world are layered and the story, while following the typical PA progression, still has enough originality in voice to make it fresh.

 

As a side note, Frida and Cal’s relationship was scarier at times than the dystopia. As someone who is reticent as a default, the fact that their marriage could begin to crumble because of a minor secret or two, a day not fully recapped, was horrifying. It made sense that their subsistence life would make them by necessity symbiotically close, but it still seemed as strange to me as the post-apocalyptic forest life. I can imagine a life like that and the reasons behind it, but would never actually survive it.