{"id":5068,"date":"2014-07-28T11:44:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T11:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2014-07-31T11:44:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T11:44:59","slug":"california-by-edan-lepucki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5068","title":{"rendered":"California by Edan Lepucki"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Little, Brown 7 August 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

396pp, hardback, \u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Thanks to our cutting-edge workout facilities and well-maintained bike paths, our valued citizens live active and healthy lifestyles. \u00a0Just wait until you try our Good for You! Diet Plan TM, offered in each of our six shopping districts\u2026\u00a0 We want to maintain a small-town feel.\u00a0 Come home to us!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

No, this is not a new garden city, advertising its charms.\u00a0 Pines is a gated community somewhere in North America, after most of society has collapsed.\u00a0 In this, her debut novel, acclaimed US author Edan Lepucki, graduate of the famous Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop and acclaimed for her short stories, gives her take on the near future.<\/p>\n

Central characters Cal and Frida have fled from Los Angeles and live in the wild.\u00a0 Earthquakes and freak weather have left a trail of destruction:\u00a0 cities have shut down, there is no Internet, no law and order.\u00a0 Somehow, the privileged few have pre-empted disaster and shut themselves up in safety.<\/p>\n

Calvin (known as Cal, short for \u2018California\u2019, his nickname) is an idealist.\u00a0 Safety, for him, is the two of them going it alone, in a grim shed in the back of nowhere.\u00a0 Two years in, they grow their own food and eke out domestic supplies brought with them or bartered from August, a mysterious itinerant trader.\u00a0 Life is hard, and lonely.\u00a0 Conditions improve when newly-discovered neighbours take poison and die, leaving a more comfortable home to move into.<\/p>\n

Frida thinks she is pregnant.\u00a0 She longs for safety, and friends.\u00a0 In time, she and Cal agree to go looking for a local community they\u2019ve heard about.\u00a0 This place is not one of the privileged ones.\u00a0 It is a ghost town, occupied by revolutionaries and run on commune principles.\u00a0 Nonetheless, it too has guards and keep-out signs, of a kind.\u00a0 Cal and Frida are captured and taken to its leader, Micah.\u00a0 Way back, Micah belonged to something called the Group, originally formed for protection against violent, selfish elements.<\/p>\n

As Frida settles in, and becomes celebrated for her baking, Cal is let into some of the community\u2019s secrets.\u00a0 But much is unexplained.\u00a0 Why are there no children here?\u00a0 Where do supplies come from?\u00a0 Who are the Pirates?\u00a0 Why must Frida keep quiet about her pregnancy?\u00a0 How trustworthy is Micah?\u00a0 Will they be allowed to stay?<\/p>\n

The denouement is chilling.\u00a0 Nonetheless, this whole story feels like a fairytale compared with what is likely to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

\u2018Thanks to our cutting-edge workout facilities and well-maintained bike paths, our valued citizens live active and healthy lifestyles. Just wait until you try our Good for You! Diet Plan TM, offered in each of our six shopping districts\u2026 We want to maintain a small-town feel. Come home to us!\u2019<\/em> No, this is not a new garden city, advertising its charms. Pines is a gated community somewhere in North America, after most of society has collapsed. In this, her debut novel, acclaimed US author Edan Lepucki, graduate of the famous Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop and acclaimed for her short stories, gives her take on the near future […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5313,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions\/5313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}