{Read} {PDF EPUB} ~download California by Edan Lepucki The Book We're Talking About: 'California' By Edan Lepucki. What we think: “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension,” Joan Didion wrote in “Los Angeles Notebook,” an essay using the Santa Ana phenomenon as a metaphor for California’s apocalyptic state. She continues, “It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. The city burning is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself.” She quotes Nathaniel West and Raymond Carver to accentuate her point, which is: California is the ideal setting for a story about the end of the world. Edan Lepucki must’ve agreed, as she chose to set her debut novel there. You might’ve heard about California from Stephen Colbert. It publishes with Little, Brown next week, an imprint under the Hachette umbrella, and thus was swept up in the most recent Amazon ruckus. Colbert’s book, too, was a victim of Amazon’s decision to remove Hachette titles from their site, so he’s taken it upon himself to encourage viewers to pick up Lepucki’s title -- a dystopian romp through a suddenly rural California -- at an independent bookstore. The story opens with Cal and Frida, a couple that has chosen to flee Los Angeles, one of many American cities that has fallen to shambles due to a sudden oil crisis and a slew of global warming-related natural disasters. As a result, the very wealthy have migrated to cloistered “Communities,” where they have highly coveted Internet access, among other luxuries. The rest of the country either lives in squalor in drug-addled former cities, or off the grid, as Cal and Frida have opted to do. The couple met through Frida’s brother, Cal’s roommate at a progressive two-year college with a clearly defined philosophy: “the field and the book, a symbiotic relationship.” Students were taught to grow tomatoes and debate Derrida in equal measure. After graduation, Micah, always a prankster, joins a performance art group that aims to protest the Communities and other capitalistic endeavors. When one of his demonstrations is taken too far, Cal and Frida believe they’ve lost him forever. After venturing away from the city that had become their home, Frida and Cal set up camp in a shack, and begin a routine of hunting, foraging, gardening, and otherwise lazing and lusting away their time. While Cal seems content with his new life, Frida finds that without an audience, her emotions are dulled. She continues to narrate her actions in her head, as though blogging for a readership. When they receive word of a nearby settlement, she eventually convinces Cal to seek it out, but the inhabitants they find there, including Micah, who they’d thought dead, seem subtly off-kilter. While Lepucki’s story has all of the conventions of a literary dystopian novel -- stripping society of its norms, she exposes our detrimental underlying tendencies -- she does more than examine how social groups form and disintegrate. She instead turns a critical eye to interpersonal relationships. As Cal and Frida join a small, new citizenry, they begin concealing details of their daily lives from one another, and their trust takes a hit for it. Chapters are told from their alternating viewpoints as their relationship slowly ebbs. This stylistic choice would be more compelling if the story were told in the character’s voices, rather than Lepucki’s workshopped third-person narration (she’s an Iowa grad, and short, declarative sentences abound), but is nevertheless sufficient for carrying along her tense and thought-provoking plot. The kicker that sets California apart from, say, Lord of the Flies , and the many stories it's spawned, is Lepucki’s astute insight into the complex, and often conflicting, emotions women attach to childbirth today. When Frida’s pregnancy becomes known within the settlement she and Cal have joined -- a clan openly supporting “containment” -- she undulates between desiring a quiet family life and the approval of her ambitious community. This sentiment, while ostensibly specific to a post-apocalyptic society, is strangely resonant with the choices women today are faced with. Likewise with the rest of the characters’ central conflicts: should personal relationships or idealistic pursuits take precedence? With California , Lepucki raises the question, and, over the course of its gripping pages, reveals her answer. What other reviewers think: Publisher's Weekly: "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." Kirkus: "This has the bones of an excellent book, but, sadly, an untenable amount of flab is covering them." Who wrote it? California is Edan Lepucki's first novel. She attended Iowa Writers' Workshop, and is a staff writer for The Millions. Who will read it? Fans of dystopian stories, especially those looking to graduate from Suzanne Collins and her ilk. Opening lines: "On the map, their destination had been a stretch of green, as if they would be living on a golf course. No freeways nearby, or any roads, really: those had been left to rot years before. Frida had given this place a secret name, the afterlife, and on their journey, when they were forced to hide in abandoned rest stops, or when they'd filled the car with the last of their gasoline, this place had beckoned. In her mind it was a township, and Cal was the mayor. She was the mayor's wife." Notable passage: "He smelled the same. She hadn't hugged him for years; even when he was alive, they barely touched, but now she couldn't let go. That smell: what was it? Pajamas worn until noon, and potato chips, and the leather band of their father's favorite watch, and the baby detergent their mother never stopped using, and his old room, the window never open, the blighted avocado tree blocking views and voyeurs alike. Her brother, his smell." Rating, out of ten: 7. Though her prose might not be particularly inventive, Lepucki's story is a compelling examination of personal relationships laid bare. A provoking thought experiment, her novel imagines a chillingly plausible future. California. And the world Cal and Frida have always known is gone. Cal and Frida have left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable despite the isolation and hardships they face. Consumed by fear of the future and mourning for a past they can't reclaim, they seek comfort and solace in one other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown but unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realise this community poses its own dangers. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and irrepressible resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Imaginative, inventive and beautifully written, California is both a shocking and engrossing read (Rosamund Lupton, bestselling author of Sister) This bestselling debut, with shades of 1984 and The Road thrusts an ordinary American couple into a frightening future. . . . powerful and creepy . . . Lepucki has given expression to a generational anxiety about the near future, one rooted in the threat of environmental crisis and the loss of meaningful cultural institutions (including the printed book). The experience of reading California brings validation to anyone who sits upright in the middle of the night struck with the instability of the human project on this planet: others are awake, too. And a lot of us are reading California . ( Amity Gaige, Folio prize-shortlisted author of Schroder, Guardian ) Atwood-esque . . . literary and elegant in a smooth, unforced way, with that droll sense of humour and a relentlessly clear eye . . . very, very good ( Belfast Telegraph ) Breathtakingly original, fearless and inventive, pitch perfect in its portrayal of the intimacies and tiny betrayals of marriage, so utterly gripping it demands to be read in one sitting: Edan Lepucki's California is the novel you have been waiting for, the novel that perfectly captures the hopes and anxieties of contemporary America. This is a novel that resonates on every level, a novel that stays with you for a lifetime. Read it now (Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year) Edan Lepucki's electrifying debut novel California has everything you want from a great pool-side read. Gripping and provocative . . . You won't be able to put it down ( Irish Tatler ) In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities (Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad) An expansive, full-bodied and masterful narrative of humans caught in the most extreme situations, with all of our virtues and failings on full display: courage, cowardice, trust, betrayal, honor and expedience. The final eighty pages of this book gripped me as much as any fictional denouement I've encountered in recent years . . . I firmly believe that Edan Lepucki is on the cusp of a long, strong career in American letters (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk) This thrilling and thoughtful debut novel by Edan Lepucki follows a young married couple navigating dangers both physical and emotional in a wild, mysterious post-collapse America. It's a vivid, believable picture of a not-so-distant future and the timeless negotiation of young marriage, handled with suspense and psychological acuity (Janet Fitch, author of Paint it Black) It's tempting to call this novel post-apocalyptic, but really, it's about an apocalypse in progress, an apocalypse that might already be happening, one that doesn't so much break life into before and after as unravel it bit by bit. Edan Lepucki tells her tale with preternatural clarity and total believability, in large part by focusing on the relationships -- between husband and wife, brother and sister, parent and child -- that are, it turns out, apocalypse-proof. Post-nothing. California is timeless (Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore) There's been no shortage of apocalyptic scenarios in our recent literature. What makes Edan Lepucki's novel so stunning is that her survivors don't merely resemble us, they are us, in their emotional particularity and dilemmas. The result is a book as terse and terrifying as the best of Shirley Jackson, on the one hand, and as clear-eyed and profound a portrait of a marriage as Evan Connell's Mrs. Bridge , on the other. California is superb (Matthew Specktor, author of American Dream Machine) Book Description : For fans of The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, California is a gripping story of love at the end of the world. California by Edan Lepucki. Your support is critical to our existence. California by Edan Lepucki. Edan Lepucki’s California was destined for greatness. It’s the debut novel from a brilliant, funny writer. It’s a literary novel full of gorgeous prose. And it’s an apocalyptic thriller. It’s got all the right stuff. But California has received more attention than anyone probably expected. On the June 4th episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert and his guest, Sherman Alexie, railed against Amazon’s “scorched-Earth tactics” in its ongoing battle with Hachette. In particular, they criticized the way Hachette’s debut authors’ sales are being stifled now that their books can’t be pre-ordered on Amazon, something Colbert called a “death sentence for a new book.” So, based on Alexie’s glowing recommendation, Colbert worked out a deal with Powell’s Books to allow pre-orders of one debut novel directly from his website—and that book is California . This is incredibly good news for Edan Lepucki, and for many players in the publishing industry. It’s also great news for the reading public because California is a debut that genuinely deserves this spotlight. The novel is set approximately forty years in the future, after a string of environmental and pandemic disasters have wreaked havoc on the United States—earthquakes in California, snowstorms in the Midwest, and a flu epidemic that cut the population of the Northeast in half, just to name a few. Though the novel’s promotional copy calls it “postapocalyptic,” I agree with Sherman Alexie that it is more accurately “mid-apocalyptic.” In cities overrun with violence, those with enough wealth have begun fleeing to exclusive, corporate-sponsored Communities where amenities and luxuries are hoarded to keep life comfortable for a select few. Outside the Communities, gas prices have skyrocketed, no one has access to medicine, and the crime rate continues to increase. A revolutionary faction known as the Group—initially composed of college students with insurmountable debt—has set up their own encampment in Los Angeles, staging increasingly dangerous demonstrations to bring attention to their beliefs: “that money only poisoned people, that government was just bureaucracy, corruption, and oppression, that working wouldn’t save them, only engagement would.” Left with few options, but a decent amount of hope and a great deal of love between them, California ’s young married protagonists, Cal and Frida, have packed up their belongings and left L.A., aiming to make a new home for themselves as far from human civilization as they can get. Two difficult years later, living alone in their house in the woods, Cal and Frida exist in a space that they sometimes refer to as the “afterlife.” They’ve survived, but the extreme isolation has left its mark on each of them in different ways. Cal appreciates the “space to consider questions… the silence, the time,” but Frida longs for a connection to the outside world—a yearning that is heightened, we soon learn, because she is pregnant. Based on rumors they’ve heard about a heavily protected camp within a two-day walk, Frida convinces Cal that they must make the journey to find and connect with other people—no matter how much they might be risking. By showing how characters relate to everyday objects in this “afterlife,” Lepucki fashions a strange, startling new world out of the mundane and familiar. Seemingly innocuous items turn out to hold great significance, like the brand-new turkey baster that Frida keeps hidden in a suitcase under her bed. It’s described in covetous detail—from its sleek, glass neck to the price tag still dangling from its butter-yellow bulb—and has clearly become a sort of talisman to her. The baster, like many other human-made objects, has been decontextualized in this wilderness. Its value resides not in its usefulness as a tool, but in its concealment—as something hidden, and therefore powerful. As Frida admires it, she thinks, “the secret of it had become as precious as the object itself.” This tight focus, Lepucki’s exacting eye for detail, makes California a satisfying apocalyptic narrative. Throughout the novel, pedestrian objects take on grave importance to characters who have lost most of their possessions and have limited access to new ones—a plastic, butterfly-shaped child’s toy indicates a massive betrayal; a slim blue volume of Kant becomes the signifier of authority and power. In one beautifully written scene, Frida marvels at a simple box of Band-Aids: Frida flipped open the tin’s lid. Inside, the Band-Aids behaved so well, lined up like school children. Already she was imagining plucking one out. It’s white wrapper thin as rice paper, and those tiny blue arrows at the top, OPEN HERE. How it would peel back so easily to reveal the Band- Aid itself, nestled flat inside. Frida’s stomach fluttered. She could have sucked on it. The salty, pretzel taste of wounds. The transition into survival mode hasn’t been easy or comfortable for Frida, a feminist who “thought that the worse things got, the more women lost what they’d worked so hard to gain. No one cared about voting rights and equal pay because everyone was too busy lighting fires to stay warm and looking for food to stay alive.” In the woods, tasks are divided by gender: Frida forages for mushrooms and washes clothes in the nearby creek, while Cal does the heavy lifting and sets snares and traps for small animals. Roughing it comes a bit easier to Cal, who attended a two-year college that taught him useful survival skills. His desire to keep Frida and their unborn child safe outweighs any willingness he may have otherwise had to divide tasks fairly. “Yes,” he thinks, “they had to rely on an antiquated division of labor. And yes, she would be rescued first from a sinking ship. Wasn’t that a relief?” Later, Cal’s compulsion to protect his family intensifies in unexpected ways, threatening to unsettle the foundations of his relationship with Frida. Lepucki’s touch is incredibly subtle in these moments, allowing us to alternately sympathize and become irritated with each character. She explores both Cal and Frida’s feelings about approaching parenthood with honesty, as they weigh the consequences of bringing a child into a world fraught with violence and hardship. She also knows the importance of a good secret—how even the tiniest bit of withheld information can cause a formidable rift between two people—and California is magnificently layered with them. In many ways, the heart of the novel resides in these large questions surrounding Cal and Frida’s relationship: whether you’re living alone in a shed in the woods, or in a comfortable apartment in a bustling city, is it ever easy to be in love? To be married? To spend your life with one other person? And can you (or should you) ever trust that person more than you trust yourself? The strategic revelation of secrets is so important to California that it’s challenging to write a review without giving too much away. In my opinion, even the book’s jacket copy includes too many disclosures, but I’m a nut about avoiding spoilers. Much of its appeal resides in its ability to surprise. It is slightly unfortunate that, dependent on its structure, many secrets are revealed through dialogue rather than out-and-out action. But there’s enough suspenseful drama in the last fifty pages of the book to make up for its relatively quiet beginning. Whether you’re a fan of apocalyptic narratives, literary fiction, or both, California is much more than just a way to stick it to Amazon—it’s a skillfully-written, carefully- crafted, gasp-inducing novel that was set for the stars even before its “Colbert bump.” Share this: Liz Wyckoff's short fiction has been published in Annalemma, The Collagist, and fwriction : review among other journals, and her book reviews and author interviews can be found online at Electric Lit, the Tin House blog, and The Lit Pub. She works in book publicity for Barrelhouse and Penn State Press, and does marketing for A Strange Object. More from this author → As a Bookshop affiliate and an Amazon Associate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. I've Just Finished Reading… One book-lover's thoughts on what she's just read. California by Edan Lepucki (2014) This post was written by my husband. The book was one we both read and enjoyed greatly last summer and he re-read this past week in preparation for teaching the novel in his Dystopian Literature class. His remarks follow. Attention was first brought to Edan Lepucki’s first novel during Stephen Colbert’s campaign against Amazon.com, as he encouraged viewers of the sadly defunct Colbert Rapport to buy California from their local independent bookseller, thus robbing Amazon of sales in the midst of their feud with publisher Hatchette. And so it was that Lepucki’s tale of a young couple seeking survival and the possibility of a future in a world torn apart by economic collapse, societal upheaval, and environmental calamity became a bestseller. This footnote on the publication history of the novel, perhaps unfortunately, affects my take on the book. The novel, on its own merits and aside from any pre-publication-Colbert-driven hype, fits into the sub-genre of speculative fiction that is marked by master works like Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (as well as the other two books in the Earthseed trilogy) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . These are books that employ what the writer Mike Davis has called “disciplined extrapolation” to imagine a realistic fall of American civilization. Lepucki’s effort in California does not match the quality of The Road , but we would certainly never ask a first novel to compete with the mature work of a canonical American novelist. Yet, the hype has unquestionably placed California in a position to deliver on heightened expectations, and in so many ways, Edan Lepucki’s work succeeds in spite of its relative immaturity. Like Butler and McCarthy, Lepucki describes the fall indirectly, through the side-view mirrors of her protagonists, Cal and Frida. There are no long, detailed passages of crumble and decay. Instead, we get glimpses of how our way of life has died through brief flashes of memory. Hurricanes and extreme instances of polar-vortex-”snowpocalypse” have crushed the population centers of the Eastern Seaboard and Mid-west. Drought, economic crisis, and resource inequality have shredded California into grimy cities where the 99 percent fight for scraps and “Communities” where the wealthy live in comfort and isolation. We are given to believe that such a dispersion of the American culture has occurred nationwide. This is much of the appeal of the book for contemporary readers; it pushes the current events of the past eight years to their logical, if extreme, endpoints. Set against the multiple crises is the rise of “The Group,” which is a likewise “disciplined extrapolation” of the Occupy Movement, a protest group that begins with dramatic, playful acts of civil disruption but that shifts to more violent acts of terrorism. Lepucki, like the aforementioned writers, takes a risk in presenting something so vast as the collapse of our very way of life–everything from the mindless entertainment and plentiful junk food that we take so much for granted to the governmental structures of infrastructure and security–merely as the setting for her young couple. And ultimately, this presentation feels quite contemporary, an expression of the so-called millenial self-absorption. The fall of the world occurs as something that happened while we were getting high and posting food pics on Instagram. This simultaneously impressed and bothered me about the novel. We meet Cal and Frida hiding out somewhere in the woods of central California, in a ramshackle house eating homegrown beets and not much else. Cal, toughened by his student years at the unique Plank College (based on real-life Deep Springs College) where studies in philosophy are paired with the operation of working farm, sees the beauty in their new life away from Los Angeles, but Frida, who realizes she is newly pregnant, feels their isolation more sharply. They have carved out a hard life in the woods, though the loss of a nearby family has returned them to the feelings of insecurity and helplessness that they felt in Los Angeles. Their only contact is the mysterious August, who brings oddball items for trade as he makes monthly rounds with his mule-drawn junk cart. Under these conditions, the couple decides to explore beyond their woodsy territory, into the emptiness of the Central Valley, where they encounter a settlement surrounded by a maze of strange, sculptural “Forms,” made of piles of once-common objects shaped into spikes by wrappings of barbed wire and chain-link fencing. Cal and Frida find in this community of settlers, called The Land by its inhabitants, a shocking secret. A man well-known to both of them, someone they believed to be dead, is alive and well and leading The Land in its Plank-esque work program. Both Cal and Frida adjust to living in this community of people shell-shocked from their necessary adaptation to a harsh new world, but what they gain in regular meals, security, and relative comforts, they begin to lose in their own mutual trust and intimacy. The leader of The Land is secretive and, we come to learn, has big plans for Cal and Frida and the baby that will be born into this uncertain life. Lepucki’s portrayal of people faced with the necessity of rebuilding from the junk and the bones and the ashes of world we all took for granted is powerful and moving, but it feels, at times, frustratingly small, focused as it is so laser-like on Cal and Frida. And Cal and Frida, even in the empty openness of the fallen world, are frustratingly hemmed into a future that is controlled by their past. California by Edan Lepucki, Signed. Signed. Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. More buying choices from other sellers on AbeBooks. California: A Novel. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little, Brown and Company (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Quantity available: 1. Signed. First Edition. First edition. Signed in felt pen by the author under her name on the title page. Very good copy in a very good dust jacket. Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: very good. California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little, Brown (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: As new. Quantity available: 1. First printing of author's first book. Inside bottom corner of dustjacket has been folded. Otherwise As new/As new. Signed on title page. Mylar cover. Little, Brown, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: As new. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st ed. Signed by author. California: A Novel. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little, Brown and Company (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Quantity available: 1. First edition with full number line to 1. Signed by the author at the title page. 393 pages. Green boards with white spine titling, near fine with only minor wear to spine tips. Spine square. Binding sound. Dust jacket shows only very minor edgewear at lower spine tips, near fine in Mylar. Little, Brown and Company, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. Signed. California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little Brown, New York (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Quantity available: 1. Signed in marker by the author on the title page, not inscribed to anyone. True first edition with the full and correct number string on the copyright page. Size: 8vo - over 7�" - 9�" tall. Little Brown, New York, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Signed by Author(s). California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little Brown, 2014 (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. 1st edition, first printing (full number line on copyright page) SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the title page Fine/fine. Little Brown, 2014, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Signed by Author(s). California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little Brown, 2014 (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. 1st edition, first printing SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the title page (most of the copies she signed appear to have been third printings; this is the true first) Fine/fine. Little Brown, 2014, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Signed by Author(s). California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little Brown, USA (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: As New. Quantity available: 1. First Edition/First Printing, unread copy. Signed by Edan Lepucki on the title page. Little Brown, USA, 2014. Hard Cover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. First Edition. Signed by Author. CALIFORNIA. Lepucki, Edan. Published by New York & Boston: Little Brown, (2014) dj (2014) Used - Hardcover. Quantity available: 1. SIGNED hardcover - 3rd printing. The author's first novel, set in a "frighteningly realistic near future." SIGNED on the title page. 392 pp. Fine in fine dust jacket. New York & Boston: Little Brown, (2014) dj, 2014. California A Novel. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little, Brown & Co., New York (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. 393pp. 8vo. Author has signed on the title page. Book is tight, unread, unmarked, unclipped, straight, and has a Brodart jacket protector. Author's debut fiction, a vision of the future. Book is a stated first edition and has a complete number line from 1-10. Gift quality. Little, Brown & Co., New York, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: fine. First Edition,:July 2014. California: A Novel. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little, Brown and Company, New York (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. SIGNED, THIRD PRINTING of the first edition (number line to 3) New York, Little Brown, 2014. NEW, Unread. Signed by the Author directly on the Title Page (not a tipped in page), no inscription. Dust Jacket Fine in Mylar Protective Cover, no wear, no tears, not price clipped ($26.00). Text Clean, no marks. Not remainder marked. Not ex-library. Books are Carefully Packed and Shipped Daily with Delivery Confirmation from Dry, Smoke-Free shop. Complete Satisfaction Guaranteed. Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Signed, Third Printing. California. Edan Lepucki. Published by Portland: Graphic Arts Pub. Co. (1989) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. One of 100 numbered copies signed by the author. Hardcover, bound in boards with dust jacket. Unmarked. Portland: Graphic Arts Pub. Co., 1989. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Limited Edition. Signed by Author(s). California. Lepucki, Edan. Published by Little Brown, UK (2014) Used - Hardcover Condition: Fine. Quantity available: 1. A SIGNED UK first edition, first impression. Stated limited edition on a blind stamp on the title page - copy number 17 of 100 copies. The Wrapper : The wrapper on this copy is very bright, is unfaded, and is complete. It is unclipped. Looks sharp. The Book : The book is square and very tight. There are no previous ownership inscriptions. The boards are clean and unfaded, the corners sharp. The pages and the closed page edges are clean. The binding is tight - no cracked hinges. No remainder marks. This copy has been SIGNED by the author to the title page. A nice copy in a protected wrapper. Paypal accepted. Little Brown, UK, 2014. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Signed by Author(s). California. The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown and unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses dangers of its own. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love. "In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities."-Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad. APPLE BOOKS REVIEW. Icy dread spreads through California , Edan Lepucki’s astonishing debut novel, which tells the story of a young married couple determined to endure the end times. After fleeing from a fuel-less, impoverished, and violent Los Angeles, Cal and Frida become homesteaders, living off the land in a desolate wilderness and taking solace in their growing intimacy. But when Frida starts to suspect she’s pregnant, she decides it’s time to seek out a larger community, a rumored settlement known to them as “the Spikes.” Lepucki’s atavistic vision of the future proves exceptionally terrifying, an apocalypse borne of slow, ugly decline rather than a cataclysmic disaster. What sets this page-turner apart from the ever-growing library of dystopian fiction is the California-based author’s unflinching dissection of a romantic relationship eaten away by suspicion, secrecy, base desires, and desperation. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 5, 2014. 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.