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Gold Fame Citrus cover art

Gold Fame Citrus

Written by: Claire Vaye Watkins
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie, MacLeod Andrews
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Publisher's Summary

An acclaimed "5 Under 35" fiction writer's much-anticipated first novel

In 2012 Claire Vaye Watkins' story collection, Battleborn, swept nearly every award for short fiction. Now this young writer, widely heralded as a once-in-a-generation talent, returns with a first novel that will more than meet listeners' hopes, harnessing the sweeping vision and deep heart that made her debut so arresting to a love story set in a devastatingly imagined near future.

In a parched Southern California of the near future, Luz, once the poster child for the country's conservation movement, and Ray, an army deserter turned surfer, are squatting in a starlet's abandoned mansion. Most "Mojavs", prevented by armed vigilantes from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to encampments in the east. Holdouts like Ray and Luz subsist on rationed cola and water and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise.

For the moment, the couple's fragile love, which somehow blooms in this arid place, seems enough. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins. Heading east, they are waylaid in the desert by a charming and manipulative dowser - a diviner for water - and his cultlike followers, who have formed a colony in a mysterious sea of dunes.

Immensely moving, profoundly disquieting, and mind-blowingly original, Watkins' novel explores the myths we believe about others and tell about ourselves, the double-edged power of our most cherished relationships, and the shape of hope in a precarious future that may be our own.

©2015 Claire Vaye Watkins (P)2015 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"Spectacular. In Margaret Atwood mode, Watkins spikes this fast-moving, high-tension, sexyecocrisis saga with caustic parodies and resounding allusions that cohere into a knowing and elegiac tale of scrappy adaptation and epic loss." (Booklist, starred)

"Packed with persuasive detail, luminous writing, and a grasp of the history (popular, political, natural and imagined) needed to tell a story that is original yet familiar, strange yet all too believable." (Publisher's Weekly, starred)

"In her powerful depictions of the scorched and merciless landscape, Watkins realizes a genuine nostalgia for our lost living world, and the American West in particular...[W]ith its damaged and complicated heroine and multiple voices, shifting perspectives, and unconventional narrative devices, [Gold Fame Citrus] is a wholly original work." (Library Journal)

What listeners say about Gold Fame Citrus

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  • jam
  • 2018-10-21

interesting and evocative

it was kind of a breathy Central tone that one of the narrator's had, the first one, but I tired of fairly quickly. But, threading was fairly good. If you find yourself bored with the first half, know that the second half improved dramatically and there is another narrator that shows the role with the first. Something I like about futuristic post-apocalyptic type novels our imaginings of new social conventions. This one has something interesting examples of such things. The description of the book does not exactly match or what it offers, but, it is worthwhile.

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