"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

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.

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2014: What does a marriage look like after the world ends? Edan Lepucki's terrific first novel California finds itself concerned with the human element when society crumbles. The post-apocalypse is beside the point. It hardly matters how we got here; all that matters is what we do next. For Cal and Frida, that becomes a tougher question when Frida discovers she's pregnant. They've survived on their own in the lush, solitary wilderness, but decide with one more mouth to feed, they may fare better within the safety of a small community. As they integrate into a nearby settlement, the couple realizes that they may have traded the hazards of the outside world for the paranoia and mistrust of other people. California questions the role of family and responsibility, and as a portrait of marriage, is perhaps as incisive as anything set in the real world. And with the conviction with which Lepucki renders the realities of her novel, it might behoove us to think of our world as the pre-apocalypse. --Kevin Nguyen

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