CALIFORNIA

“[One of] 30 books you NEED to read in 2014….

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.

I wanted to say…something like 'if Lorrie Moore had written Cormac McCarthy's The Road...' but that seems too glib for this stunning and brilliant novel, which is a wholly original take on the post-apocalypse genre, an end-of-the-world we've never seen before and yet is uncomfortably believable and recognizable. By turns funny and heartbreaking, scary and tender, beautifully written and compulsively page-turning, this is a book that will haunt me, and that I'll be thankful to return to in the years to come. It left me speechless. Read it, and prepare yourself.

….Here’s what will top our beside stack of books this year….Lepucki’s debut is an inventive take on the post-apocalyptic novel, about a couple who moves from an isolated existence in the wilderness to a guarded community that, they soon realize, harbors terrifying secrets and unforeseen dangers. We’ll probably read this one on the morning commute instead of at bedtime.

California is a vivid and terrifying exploration of a richly imagined world that is both unrecognizable and deeply, eerily familiar. Lepucki's talent on display here is a balance of speculation and grounded emotional truth, livened with a deft touch of humor that shows itself in unexpected moments. An entertaining and stimulating debut, and I'm already looking forward to her next.

California is a wonder: a big, gripping and inventive story built on quiet, precise human moments. Edan Lepucki's eerie near future is vividly and persuasively imagined. She is a fierce new presence in American fiction.

Library Journal puts the book on its list of Summer's Best Debuts, writing: Both a LibraryReads and a Discover Great New Writers pick, this debut features Cal and Frida, who are increasingly uncertain of their security deep in the wilderness and decide to head for the nearest settlement. Perhaps not a good idea. “An inventive take on the post- apocalyptic novel” (Time Out Chicago) that’s “steeped in Southern California literary tradition” (Los Angeles Times). Read more...

In prose witty, seductive, and exacting, Lepucki reminds us that, in the after-life of social collapse, it's not only the strongest willed, but the most compassionate among us, who must rebuild. California is an epic of interiors.

In her remarkable debut California, Edan Lepucki has conjured a post-apocalyptic vision that is honest, frightening, and altogether too realistic. At times disturbing and often heartbreaking, California is an original examination of the limitations of family and loyalty in a world on the verge of collapse.

this novel was bought at auction by Allie Sommer. Edan interviewed Allie for The Millions back in March before there was any sort of "Colbert bump." In the intro she sings Allie's praises: "I learned so much about writing from working with Allie, and my book is better because she edited it” Read more...

In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities.

Dystopian fiction is still going strong, and 2014 is full of new entries in this particularly beloved subset of SFF….[California by Edan Lepucki is]The good dystopian stuff….The literary stuff.

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.

Edan Lepucki's novel California kept me up for five nights. This was a problem. However, I was not just tired, but often worried for the characters, for our world, and then astonished and laughing at her skill with humor and lyricism even in the fearful landscape. It's a ruined place, yes, but the bonds of family, and the betrayal of blood, are as true as every in her surprising imagery and her complicated humans, who could be any of us.

Most anticipated….Lepucki’s debut follows a young couple struggling to make it work in a shack in the wilderness and straddles the (complementary) domestic and dystopian spheres, addressing horrors like marital strife, pregnancy, and the end of society as we know it.

Imaginative, inventive and beautifully written, California is both a shocking and engrossing read

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.

Edan Lepucki is the very best kind of writer: simultaneously generous and precise. I am long been an admirer of her prose, but this book—this book, this massive, brilliant book—is a four alarm fire, the ambitious and rich introduction that a writer of her caliber deserves. I can't wait for the world to know what I have known for so many years, that Edan Lepucki is the real thing, and that we will all be bowing at her feet before long.

June 5, 2014: Stephen Colbert started his own pre-sell campaign for CALIFORNIA by Edan Lepucki on last night's episode of The Colbert Report—and the book is the #1 bestseller in pre-orders on Powells.com! Read more...

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.

Flavorwire includes CALIFORNIA on its list of "10 Must-Read Books for July," writing, "This is the arrival of a writer you can’t ignore," Read more...

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….Edan has shown herself to be a wonderfully unsettling and perceptive chronicler of contemporary life. Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets past her gimlet eye, and she’s unflinching, and often uproariously funny, in her narratives of love, family, work, sex, and death, all that messy human stuff that fills and sometimes overfills our days. I firmly believe that Edan Lepucki is on the cusp of a long, strong career in American letters.

The New York Timesran a profile on CALIFORNIA author Edan Lepucki on the front page of the arts section! In the piece, Sherman Alexie calls the book "an earnest page turner." Read more...