A Novel by Claire Vaye Watkins (2015-09-29) - Gold Fame Citrus

Visionary and terrifying, all the moreso for being vivid and startlingly real, Claire Vaye Watkins’s "Gold Fame Citrus" forces us to consider a world too ghastly to consider. And in that world the tendencies of humans become all too predictable, repeating the same behaviors that have plagued the race forever. This novel will focus your attention like very few others will. Its sweep and energy and horror all executed with sharp, assured artistry, it clearly fulfills the promise of Ms. Watkins’s earlier short story collection, "Battleborn."

Far enough into a profligate, misguided future, no water exists in the western half of North America, and the United States has basically evacuated the land west of the Mississippi, and then written it off. Our story begins in the lawless, desiccated waste of Los Angeles, where Ray and Luz try to make their way. They prop up each other’s inadequacies and forgive each other’s crippling histories, but then they do something they should never do - they take on another mouth to feed, a third thirst. A toddling, runty, tow-headed girl, perhaps a little developmentally challenged, very apparently needs rescuing, and so they snatch her away.

“Away” turns out to be the leading edge of a dune sea, a hellish, inexorable, mobile environmental disaster, thousands of feet high, feeding on and exacerbating the desert Southwest. The little one becomes a pawn eventually in a con game, run by the charismatic chief of a group of fugitive vagabonds, who are even further beyond the arm of the law or society. She is the one negotiable chip, this little waif, in a bold, perhaps maniacal power play between grownups who serve her very ill.

And here we arrive at the tenor of "Gold Fame Citrus": people are ready to use you for their own ends, particularly if those ends center on self-preservation. Characters launch ill-conceived gambits, or engage in cynical bluffs, or manipulate their way to murky ends - all this against a dystopian backdrop that promises no more than certain, agonizing death. But to the great credit of our esteemed author, these designs continue to show venal, suspicious, or rapacious human nature in high relief. Ms. Watkins has constructed a wasted framework for this all-too-human theater, a combination powerful and effective. It’s superb, impressive work.

'Gold Fame Citrus' by Claire Vaye Watkins is a literary tale of a dystopian near future. The premise promised me more than I felt like I got. I've read a few critically acclaimed literary fiction books that dabble in speculative fiction, and they leave me puzzled because it seems that the authors don't really understand the genre that they are setting their stories in.

In a post-water California, most people who have been able to have left the state behind. The rest, the 'mojavs,' are not welcome anywhere. Luz and Ray live in an abandoned house in the hills overlooking the city. She reads about famous historical figures and dresses in the clothes the starlet who owned the house left behind. He does chores around the house and thinks of turning the empty pool into a skate park. Things happen and they find themselves trying to make their way East. They find themselves among different groups of people: those who want to party until it all burns out, or people on an almost religious quest to chase a dying dream, or dreamers on the edge of the ocean in the fading light.

I liked the concept, most of the characters and I liked the writing, but I found it tough to actually care about anyone in the story. Especially when one of the main characters is presented with the kind of life shaking turning point that would force anyone else to act, and then that character decides to not actually change. Maybe that's realistic, but it made me dislike the journey I was on with this book.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Quercus Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

I enjoyed the opening portion of this book. California and a large part of the west are suffering severe drought and the area has become like a police state to keep the survivors in order. We're introduced to a pair of fairly well developed lovers and in time a child. However, about a third of the book in, the story starts collapsing. Too much background is given on each character and the story drags on. The ending is disappointing and meaningless.

The first third of the book indicates that the author is indeed promising. However, I can't honestly recommend this book. I will be interested in seeing how she does in a second book.

Just a quick disclaimer - my philosophy of good writing is that it you should not even be aware of it. If you find yourself counting alliterations, or thinking 'what a clever word to use there....', it's not good writing. So that said, what had drawn my attention to this book was the theme of post-apocalypse and survival, but unfortunately, it became clear fairly quickly that it suffers from one of the most annoying aspects of books in any genre, which is prose that is so pretentious, overwrought, and determined to announce itself that any dimension in the characters or the story-line is lost. There are sentences brimming with opulence and detailed descriptions of things of significance great and small, but the most basic idea of telling a story is not priority. It's not to say that the author can't write - clearly she can, but this book was clearly to me a triumph of style over substance.

GOLD FAME CITRUS by Claire Vaye Watkins is story of Luz and Ray, a couple trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where water is all but non-existent. They begin in California, but soon in the story migrate east, where their lives become infinitely more complicated by the environment, the people they come across, and the governmental forces around them.
I enjoyed the story and all of the characters, big or small, were interesting to meet. Watkins writes in a unique style, with only two breaks in the story, called books, instead of chapters. She also jumps point of view around and approaches scenes in the story in different ways. She uses the dreams and imaginations of the characters to delve into their feelings. The action of the story was interesting and I was shocked a couple of times and felt satisfied with the ending. There were moments I did wish that the story would move forward and I was lost in the extensive descriptions that seem too much and unnecessary at times. That excessive description reminded me of why I had a hard time getting through Phillip Roth books; I enjoyed his story and was as impressed with his grasp of the language as I am with Watkins, but I wanted to push aside some of it to get on with the plot.
I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys post-apocalyptic stories. Someone who likes reading about characters trying out who the really are would like this book as well.
Thanks to Claire Vaye Watkins, Quercus Books, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Recently I saw an episode of Sliders that had basically the same plot in this book's description. Combine that with recent California drought warnings and a recent Twilight Zone viewing of the episode where the Earth was moving too close to the sun, and I was all set to love this book before I turned the first page. Granted, I expected something a bit more realistic and like a book you would find in a department store shelf as recommended by some talk show host (they seem to love the kind of realistic fiction that just ain't my thing). Just the same, I expected to at least moderately enjoy this book. I should have known better.

While there are indeed elements of style present and good writing on a technical level (no amateurish dialog tags, excellent use of grammar and pacing, etc), the characters are flat and uninteresting, the world uncompelling, the plot... is there a plot? It soon became quite clear to me that the author is trying to be stylish and profound and modern in her writing, but somewhere along the line she missed the point.

The book is certainly better written than any of the recent YA stuff floating out there (well, except maybe the author of The Fault In Our Stars), but when you combine the glum foul-mouthed pointless world with a lack of a compelling world or character, good writing alone is not enough to make you want to keep reading.

If you're craving a used-up world sci-fi read some cyberpunk instead. If you want a desert world with some cool tech and philosophy read Dune. If you want a story just like only worth experiencing watch that Sliders episode or some Mad Max. It's more entertaining by far, and really I think that's the point.

I struggled with my rating of Claire Vaye Watkins's Gold Fame Citrus. I was bored for the first third of the book (Book One, 111 pages recounting the story of Luz, Ray, and Ig before they encounter the colony in the Dune Sea), and I know many, if not, most readers would have cut their losses long before they reached Book Two. However, Gold Fame Citrus came highly recommended by Book Riot, which described it as "a dystopian masterpiece"; it was selected for the 2016 Tournament of Books Long List; and Watkins's essay "On Pandering" was generating a lot of literary buzz, so I persevered.

Was it worth it? I don't know. A masterpiece it is not, and it didn't really pay off for me until page 323 (out of 339) when Watkins departed from her conventional storytelling in a tantalizing way which I will not describe further for fear of spoiling it. It did, however, give me probably the best closing sentence I read all year, and, as all good trial lawyers know, juries give disproportionate weight to the last thing they hear (the "recency effect"). I don't consider the time I spent reading Gold Fame Citrus wasted, particularly if it gave me a leg up on the Tournament of Books Short List, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, either.

I received a free copy of Gold Fame Citrus through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have just begun listening to “Gold Fame Citrus”. I have the version from Audible.com narrated by Jorjeana Marie. I really want to know that the main character, Luz, who had a Mexican mother, was actually named Luz as in the Spanish word for “light”. I cannot stand the mispronunciation of Luz in the audible book, unless it was intentional. Was it intentional? As a Spanish speaker it is really irritating.

Had to read this book for a college fiction class. The story is 339 pages long, which feel like a massive drag through the filler arc of a tale which should be much more imaginative and exciting. The only thing I found interesting about the book is the variety of structure, very modern unlike anything I've read before-- however even these innovative, refreshing techniques fall flat given a story arc which feels like it wastes every opportunity to become of interest to the reader. The story is very realistic despite being a work of fiction, and to some this may be appealing-- but to those who seek drama, there isn't much to find here. All the "drama" within the story is reduced to triviality due to the poor execution of the 'effects' set up by the causation(s). Oh, and a last problem with the story which should be mentioned: is that almost nobody is likable in this world, and thus it's difficult for the reader to care about what happens to them even in the most 'disastrous' events within the story. (I use this word loosely, because as I said earlier: the scenes are incredibly tame.) The only thing which seems to push the envelope are the detailed sex scenes, I'm not a prude by any means but I felt the sex scenes only served to trap, (or shock the prude) readers much like Hollywood would use sex scenes in their most mundane films to keep a viewers interest. So much wasted time, if I couldn't get money back for re-selling it to Powells or something, I think I'd have much greater satisfaction in burning my copy than I did reading it.

That was a bizarre book. Fundamentalists and environmental dystopias make for compelling plots. Overall the book felt a little manic - I would assume similar to how one would feel in extreme dehydration.

Fractious: this novel thrusts the reader into a divided world - divided landscape, people, and selves. We immediately care for the main characters and suffer great tension over their various fates. Admirable also is the novel's compelling and flawless structure, from the first arresting line: "Punting the prairie dog into the library was a mistake," to the last. This is a book that will make you question the angles of argument we impose upon ourselves, and if we will ever arrive at an unbiased truth. Unlike some over-advertised novels, there is very good reason why this book has arrested so much attention. Watkins has established herself as a contemporary writer that students will eventually be required to read; that is, if teachers haven't caught on already. Watkins is the new and refreshing Aldous Huxley.

In a haunting vision of the near future, inexorable draught and desert sands have laid waste to the mystical southwestern desert and the once shining beacon of California that at one time held a promise of gold, fame and citrus. Those who are still alive there survive on cola rations and black market fruit.

Ensconced in this dismal setting are two rays of light: Luz (the Spanish translation of light. “Luz was light, she was light-headed, light within light…”) and Ray (think: sun ray). As a deserter and a quitter, his life has been “an archipelago of ambiguity and abstraction and impossibility”; as the former poster child for the Bureau of Conservation, she is defined by her thirsty needs. And then one day, they discover a strange fragile young toddler named Ig. They abduct her to save her and so the real story begins.

Claire Vaye Watkins astounded me with her short story collection Battleborn, surely one of the best contemporary collections of the past five years. So even though I am not a fan of dystopian literature (the only two I’ve liked have been Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and Dog Stars by Peter Heller), I just had to see how far her talent had taken her.

The book is a wonder and testimony to a fertile imagination. It’s about how we lay waste to our greatest gifts: our land, our dreams, our abilities to love and nurture. It’s about how we’ve become parched for the anything authentic, seeking false saviors and believing in fake visions as we strive to satiate ourselves. It’s about the mystical lure of cults and drugs and visions and lies…anything that leads us away from ourselves. And it’s about an unknowable child, a child who may just be the catalyst to help those to whom she’s entrusted know themselves.

In ways, it’s also about how barren and bereft and lifeless our lives become – both interior and exterior – when we lose sight of what we truly thirst for. Claire Vaye Watkins touches on many issues: apocalyptic weather phenomenon, government conspiracies, cult idoltry, forced evacuations, crowd acquiescence, and loss and forgiveness. Yet Ms. Watkins never ignores her characters; Luz, Ray and Ig come across as all too real. I can’t even imagine where this talented young writer is headed next.

California's future looks bleak in this dystopian novel. The book had promise, but it let me down. If I had to choose between this book and Station Eleven, I would pick the latter every time. I gave it three stars because some parts are really good. This book is compared to The Road, which makes since because the reader keeps waiting for something to happen and it never does. The story bounces around from first to third person. It had all the makings of a great book: troubled female protagonist and a carnivorous Stiltwater Tortoise! The best part was the list of animals that had to adapt to the new environment.

This is a disturbing but compelling apocalyptic vision, populated by strange characters in an arid, nearly-abandoned future American West. The book had reading highs and lows for me--almost put down a couple times--but it kept calling me back and kept me going. Not at all a feel-good book, no happy ending here. After four years of drought and no end in sight for climate change, this may be California's parched future.

I really enjoyed Gold Fame Citrus. I couldn't wait to get back to reading, I wished it wouldn't end. The world was so complex that as a reader I almost felt like I could look past the character's lens and see something that they might be missing. There was a great tension about what was true in this dystopian world that felt very modern and honest.

"Gold Fame Citrus" reads like long form poetry in the best ways. Stunning prose and brilliantly executed background and character development (and I mean truly excellent - I did not like Luz at first. In fact, many of the characters I didn't like at first and those I did switched places in a completely thorough, developed, and sensible manner) make this novel a truly unique and exciting post-apocalyptic tale in a class all its own. It drew me in completely and instantly, transporting me instantly into the dying remains of Los Angeles. This novel deserves to be recognized as a classic. It really is incredibly beautiful, riveting, terribly intelligent, and exciting. As a writer, "Gold Fame Citrus" is a book I absolutely wish I had written, and I can't give any higher praise than that.

Gold Fame Citrus is a stunning novel that navigates the space between literary and genre fiction. Watkins's fearlessness in structure allows her to craft a unique prose that effortlessly traverses time and space in a near-future, desolate, dried up American West. Gold Fame Citrus follows Luz, a media-adopted poster child for climate change action propaganda and spurned model, living out the drought with her lover, Ray, in a starlet's abandoned California mansion. Things change for Ray and Luz when they find a baby living with a group of burn-outs, and decide to take her in. Ig, the child, motivates Ray and Luz to escape the desert and seek a better life, but at what cost? While Ray and Luz lose each other, and come back again, Watkins provides a satire of media and entertainment that is darkly funny, allowing moments of light permeate themselves throughout her tragic chapters. Watkins provides us with a vision of the future that is terrifyingly real, and characters that, in all their flaws, will tug on your heart. Watkins’ prose jumps between rash and jumpy to allegorical and stunningly beautiful. In a heartbreaking account of love, loss, and faith, Gold Fame Citrus, explores the nature of belief in a world stripped off all hope.

This is not "The Water Knife". This is more "The Water Collander" -- a narrative thread that wanders, a story that is not engrossing, characters that are indulgent, writing that is awkward and uneven.

We are in the middle of dystopia pornography, a sub-branch of the pornography of death, an era where every aspiring author has to have one novel about the end of times. Thirty years ago, every author had to have an incest moment (Think "A Thousand Acres".)

This one by Claire Watkins is set in the Southwest, land of swimming pools, dry in a drought at the end of times. We have Luz and Ray and a baby and a group of people trying to survive, told in a mildly convoluted and entirely unconvincing style, without verve, without spark, without the kind of writing that crackles. The result is dis-spiriting.

As the relationship develops, the drought and the travel serve as a metaphor... wait, wait, do I need the drought to be a metaphor for a dying relationship between Ray and Luz? The mountain range is a mortar and the colony moves through the desert, although it is almost as if the desert moves through the colony, or some such meandering writerly stuff, and we feel a sad sense of foreboding, or maybe a foreboding sense of sadness, or maybe the tragic sense of loneliness, or maybe life is s*** when there is no water, and relationships dry up, and the reader begins to pound his head on the table in a migraine of pain that Ray feels for us as he walks, and the reason to read this book dwindles into the distance, and the book moves through me like water in a desert that does not exist, and I put the book down and cannot find it anywhere, but OK, I can live with that.

Gold Fame Citrus is a beautifully told story. This book is difficult to put into any kind of genre and the writer is completely her own, not comparable to other writers. Watkins created an entirely new world and an entirely new literature, a place where none of us are safe.

The despair in this book is sometimes overwhelming. This is no ordinary dystopian story. It is prescient.

the store, please pass this on to the publisher. No one should pay more for an e-book than paperback. Nothing about that makes sense. Kindle owners as a group should refuse on principle to pay more than $10 ever because we don't get a physical product, manufactured and shipped. The publisher should get no money from us and we should depress the ratings of any book priced like this. In the long run, maybe the publisher would price things logically and end up selling more, which would end up benefiting the author too.

Gold Fame Citrus made me long for California--that wild, desolate, on the brink of the world feeling you get driving across the state.
I wouldn't want to live in Claire Vaye Watkins' post-apocalyptic vision of California, but it's a fantastic setting for a novel. Drought-ridden with a dune sea that swallows vehicles and mountain ranges, the state is as much a character in the novel as Luz and Ray, a couple living in a starlet's abandoned mansion in the hills of L.A. after most of the city has been evacuated to the East Coast. After they steal a neglected toddler from a dangerous group of vagabonds, they set out for the border in hopes of a better future. Instead they find a wandering group of desert dwellers and their charismatic, but dangerous leader.
Claire Vaye Watkins will break your heart, but in the most beautiful, imaginative way possible.