Claire Vaye Watkins

"Drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. Most of the Southwest has been evacuated. Luz and Ray are holdouts, squatting in a starlet's abandoned mansion and subsisting on rationed cola and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise, their love somehow blooming in this arid place. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, and the thirst for a better future begins."--

Gold Fame Citrus

Bryan Alexander

What might the world look like after catastrophic climate change?

This has been the subject of some science fiction for decades, and lately has appeared in a few mainstream literary sources. Gold Fame Citrus is an example of the latter, showing one possibility, wherein desertification overruns southern California. 

The plot focuses on a model, Luz, as she and her boyfriend and a baby try to survive in what's left of Los Angeles. Being American literature, this becomes a road trip as they head into a mysterious desert. I'll save the rest of the narrative for further in this review; it's not really a suspenseful book, but some might prefer to discover key plot points on their own.

The world is a believable one. Climate refugees, here nicknamed Mojavs (think Okies), are almost certain. Had I read this a year or two earlier, I would have been skeptical about governmental responses to disasters, but, well. I'm not sure about the roving megadune (named for this, I think), but allowed for it, especially given all characters' altered mental states.

Gold Fame Citrus is a very literary novel, in that its style is gorgeous and fascinating. I found myself slowing down in many paragraphs to enjoy turns of phrase. At their backs, gone coral and shimmering in the sun's slant, was a de-sal plant classified as defunct but that in truth had never been funct.(22)Watkins is very precise about word choice and names - Luz and Ray, for example, both names of light for people living with too much of it (and also a decided lack of clarity, for an ironic turn). The title phrase, weirdly evocative, only mentioned twice in the book (23, 338), is a nice shorthand for why people move to LA: for money, celebrity, and the senses (or no winter). The cult leader's name, Levi Zabriskie (140), references the land where he sets up shop as well as the 1970 film about love, visionary politics, and failure. Levi's "Neo-Fauna of the Amargosa Dune Sea" is delightful.

The characters, though... I appreciate flawed characters, I do. I just grew tired of spending time with Luz and Ray. Luz is very entitled and shows it throughout, which grated. Ray is an odd combination of physical superman with boneheaded choices, largely made off stage, that feel duct taped together. I was much more interested in the crime? family early on, and, of course, the dune cultists.

What does this novel tell us about climate change lit? (Someday I might get used to the awful neologism "cli-fi")

First, that it's starting to make headway in the mainstream. I'm sure there are plenty of readers who wouldn't be caught dead reading Kim Stanley Robinson, Paulo Bacigalupi, or even JG Ballard, but who'd warm to Watkins.

Second, Gold Fame Citrus carries on the gender role reification well known to post-apocalyptic fiction. From the start every character is neatly slotted into traditional gender roles. Women are mothers, food makers, associated with cloth. Men are leaders, organizers, sports fiends, good with tools. Luz is a model who has no other skills - except an overwhelming desire for babies. Ray is a soldier. Luz is scared of an intruding animal, so hides while Ray takes care of it. Levi turns his community into a sex cult for himself, and sets up women as sex objects and wet nurses. Etc. It's like The Walking Dead or Victorian dolls.

Third, this is an example of a love-hate portrayal of a region in disaster. The book's title shows us southern California's allure, but when the phrase is first mentioned the next word is "mirage." Throughout we revel in the author's deep knowledge of local history and lore, but by the novel's end we've seen: a utopian community become a cult, then a failure; the small family broken up; incompetent to cruel local government; no way forward. There is no positive community in the text. In other words, climate fiction might not be tragedy per se, but revelatory of how screwed up things were before the crisis really hits. 

Fourth, the narrative arc is one of possibilities dashed. We see our couple of love, then add a baby (not biologically), then set off on their own. The dune commune offers another vision of possibility. But all of these are shown to be tawdry or dangerous, then dismantled - the end. I don't mean to say "gee, climate fiction is depressing," but that this novel refused to give us any ways forward or any outs. It's not quite a dystopia, since the vision isn't set up that way. It refuses consolation. The last two paragraphs show us separation, voicelessness, drowning (ironically), and infertility. It is ultimately bleak and perhaps stands as a warning to not chase mirages, even those as lovely as pre-desert California.

Recommended for the sentences and for its place in climate fiction.

Zach Grosser

Haunting and beautifully written first novel by the award-winning author of Battleborn, set among a cult of survivors in a dystopian American desert 'A Mad Max world painted with a finer brush' Elle 'An unforgettable journey into a hauntingly imagined near-future' Ruth Ozeki 'Set in a drought-ravaged Southern California trolled by scavengers, Gold Fame Citrus burns with a dizzying, scorching genius' Vanity Fair Desert sands have laid waste to the south-west of America. Las Vegas is buried. California - and anyone still there - is stranded. Any way out is severely restricted. But Luz and Ray are not leaving. They survive on water rations, black market fruit and each other's need. Luz needs Ray, and Ray must be needed. But then they cross paths with a mysterious child, who needs them more than anything - and the thirst for a better life begins. Claire Vaye Watkins's much-anticipated and lauded first novel delivers on her promise as one of America's best new writers.

Gold Fame Citrus

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