California by Edan Lepucki
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is another fine literary post-apoc/survival book.
like The Road, or Zone One, it uses its setting as a backdrop to explore larger human concerns. it doesn’t focus on the “how we got here,” but rather on “what do we do with what we have left?” and specifically on the effects of solitude and community on the marriage of cal and frida.
which makes it sound like an elizabeth berg novel, and it’s definitely not, but that was to me the most unusual aspect of the book, in a genre i have read extensively: what it means to be two survivors. what it means to be two survivors with a third to-be-born. what it means to be two survivors suddenly living in a group of other survivors. and the challenges these changing social groups represent for the couple at their center.
a quick overview: while the book isn’t very detailed in terms of the specifics of the world-altering events, there has basically been a gradual breakdown and decline; a combination of weather events, illnesses, energy crises unwinding across the map, leaving many dead, pockets of wealthy gated communities to prosper, roving bands of pirates to pillage, and individuals eking out a life for themselves in the wilderness. cal and frida are two of these people. the beginning of the book finds them alone, having fled the desolation of LA, surviving in the forest with only each other to rely upon. it’s not an easy existence, but they are happy, in love, still passionate about each other in this prelapsarian setting but with a decidedly postlapsarian outlook, filled with memories of what they have lost. their only contact is august, a man who travels between the various isolated homesteads, trading for supplies. frida’s realization that she is pregnant brings the first shift in their relationship, along with the strain and uncertainty about what bringing a child into this new world would entail. when she inadvertently learns of a community nearby, she decides she wants to relocate there with cal, who has his own reasons to be suspicious, but eventually decides to take the chance, for his family to have a shot at a life with all the benefits of a community.
but it gets more complicated than either of them had foreseen.
obviously, i am going to leave that for you to find out for yourself, and it is the meat of the novel, but for me the uniqueness of this book lies in what engagement in and with this community does to cal and frida as a couple. there are plenty of reasons why their situation becomes problematic, which are SHHHHH, but in the background of all the larger dramas is the constant stream of how just the very presence of others changes their relationship. after years of having only each other, suddenly they are surrounded by other people, other voices, other conversations and perspectives and sights and sounds. and suddenly they have different roles and distractions and parts to play and needs to fill and even though it is just a quiet element of the book, for me, it was the most fascinating and revelatory.
this book is a success on every level, and i am so pleased to see this genre thriving and evolving and being put to great use as a way to dissect the very essence of humanity and still tell a ripping good story. thumbs to the sky!
