Happy Summer, Beach Readers!
We hope you’re racking up plenty of hours of beachside bliss this month. If you need a book to accompany those long, lovely days on the shore, join our Beach Reads Book Club this month as we devour Edan Lepucki’s debut novel, California.
The post-apocalyptic page-turner is set in Los Angeles in the not-so-distant future, in a world where government has failed, businesses have closed, disease has spread, and food is scarce. The story follows Frida and Cal, a couple who live alone in a forest, foraging for food, until Frida’s unexpected pregnancy forces them to seek proper help and shelter. We’re thrilled to find out what happens!
First, we caught up with Edan to ask a few quick questions:
Coastal Living: What inspired you to write an post-apocalyptic tale set in California?
Edan Lepucki: I was inspired to set my apocalyptic tale in California because it’s my home state and where I live now. All of my work is about California and the west; it’s what I know and love, and I find the landscape beautiful and strange and rich for fiction. California is also progressive and ahead of the world in so many ways; it seems only fitting that the world would end there first!
CL: What makes the Southern California landscape the perfect setting for the book?
EL: Frida and Cal actually leave Southern California to try to make it on their own in the wilderness of Northern California. But LA is where they fell in love, and where Frida is from, and so they think back often of the city and life they left behind. For me, it’s a book about that loss and longing for what is no longer reachable.
CL: If the world really was ending, which California town would you escape to?
EL: Laguna Beach! I went there every summer with my dad; we have friends who live in a beautiful house there, just a short walk to the ocean. It’s one of my favorite places on earth, let alone California!
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of California here, and join us for a live Twitter chat with Edan on August 1, at 1:30 PM EST using #clbookclub!
Headshot photo: Bader Howar
