California - Hardcover

Imaginative, inventive and beautifully written, California is both a shocking and engrossing read (Rosamund Lupton, bestselling author of Sister)

This bestselling debut, with shades of 1984 and The Road thrusts an ordinary American couple into a frightening future.. . . powerful and creepy . . . Lepucki has given expression to a generational anxiety about the near future, one rooted in the threat of environmental crisis and the loss of meaningful cultural institutions (including the printed book). The experience of reading California brings validation to anyone who sits upright in the middle of the night struck with the instability of the human project on this planet: others are awake, too. And a lot of us are reading California. (Amity Gaige, Folio prize-shortlisted author of Schroder, Guardian)

Atwood-esque . . . literary and elegant in a smooth, unforced way, with that droll sense of humour and a relentlessly clear eye . . . very, very good (Belfast Telegraph)

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 (Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year)

Edan Lepucki's electrifying debut novel California has everything you want from a great pool-side read. Gripping and provocative . . . You won't be able to put it down (Irish Tatler)

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)

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 . . . I firmly believe that Edan Lepucki is on the cusp of a long, strong career in American letters (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk)

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 (Janet Fitch, author of Paint it Black)

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 (Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore)

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 (Matthew Specktor, author of American Dream Machine)