California’s dark future

Edan Lepucki's debut US novel California, about climate disaster is topical but, in the end, less than convincing.

Marina district after the Californian earthquake. The book is set in a world where climate change has wreaked havoc. Science Photo Library

It is the near future. Earthquakes, wildfires, severe blizzards – the devastating results of climate change – have upturned the United States.
Its cities are crumbling and dangerous. Food and water are scarce. The rich have fled to gated, secure "Communities".
This is the apocalyptic world that Cal and Frida find themselves in. They have fled from Los Angeles to the wilderness in a "back-to-the-land" survival attempt, eking out an existence by growing vegetables, cooking in an outdoor pit and washing clothes in stream.
If this seems like familiar territory, then it is. Authors such as Cormac McCarthy and Karen Thompson Walker have considered such a dark future and how life might go on, somehow.
Edan Lepucki's, California, then, covers well-trodden ground. However, her book has been subjected to a much more rigorous examination than most debut or post-apocalyptic books. California was plugged on the Stephen Colbert show, where he urged people to buy the book direct from publisher, Hachette, to show solidarity with them in their battle against Amazon. Interestingly, two of the Communities are named Walmart and Amazon. In the book, corporations fund several of them, put up the money to build hospitals and schools, borders and provide security.
So Cal and Frida leave behind LA, a "festering swamp" and rely on each other for survival. When we meet the couple, we also learn that they had experienced personal crises: Cal's mother died in one of the freak weather conditions, while Frida's brother, Micah, a charismatic student turned suicide bomber, is remembered through a series of flashbacks. Micah had introduced the couple but, radicalised by the deteriorating situation, he joins "The Group". This organisation starts off as a collective of disgruntled students looking to disturb the status quo. But it swiftly develops into a more shadowy terrorist body seeking to confront the rich for their selfishness, for establishing these communities and turning their back on humanity.
An artsy element breaks off and the anarchists remain. We learn of one of their attacks on a hospital emergency ward. The hospital started to charge entry in cash or gold only. Then a man dies in the car park because he was refused admittance. The Group, outraged by this and the emerging pattern of indifference to the less fortunate, blow up the entrance to the hospital. This results in the death of a worker, who collected the entry payment, and a nurse losing her hand.
We also learn that Frida is possibly pregnant. And in the wilderness, there are moments of contentment. "This is what she always wanted," said Frida. "A painless life." But it is clear from the outset that Cal and Frida will not be staying in their shack in the wilderness. They become aware of "The Forms", an imposing maze of spikes to ward off curious travellers, which are located close to their position. Beyond the spikes materialises a settlement.
"The ghost of a ghost town," says one of the first people Cal and Frida encounter, of this vaguely cultish group.
The story then begins to take a darker turn, with the couple trying to find their way in this paranoid community, while they learn of its "containment" policy, its dark past and uncertain future.
Lepucki's novel examines climate change, natural disasters and the depletion of resources. This is no fantasy. Many people have already subscribed to the belief that the world is heading for such a catastrophic fate. The rise of the "prepper" movement, for example, has spawned a group of survivalists living "off the grid", ready and prepared to wait out a huge disruption to the social order.
The book is also a cautionary tale against the worst aspects of human behaviour. In California, hierarchies exist everywhere and, unsurprisingly, it is the rich that come off the best. They live in relative comfort and security in their Communities and they have enough to eat. Those who run these Communities even wish for them to become sovereign states. But life there resembles something from the worst clichés of 1950s American society. It feels like a back-to-the-future exercise: men go out to work and they make the decisions, while women are expected to stay at home, look after the house and take care of the children.
The book has garnered significant sales and attention because of Colbert's intervention. However, Cal and Frida never truly become three-dimensional characters and the communities to which the wealthy have retreated do not seem to add up to a fully developed theory – the naming of these communities after well-known corporations is too obvious and reads like a gimmick.
Despite this, the novel reflects genuine fears about the state of the planet, the human condition and how we would act in such a traumatic situation.
There should be much more to come from Lepucki, an author with potential. Watch this space.
John Dennehy is the deputy editor of The Review.
[e-mail]