Gold Fame Citrus

Claire Vaye Watkins’s speculative fiction Gold Fame Citrus (2015) imagines an apocalyptic California overcome by drought. Main characters Luz and Ray are living together in an abandoned mansion in the Hollywood Hills when the sudden inclusion of rescued two-year-old Ig forces them to think about abandoning desolate Los Angeles for the green and hospitable eastern states where Ray was born. The book is split into three parts and told primarily through Luz's perspective.

Luz and Ray live in a mansion in the Hollywood hills. Its former owner abandoned the house, leaving behind closets full of beautiful clothes that Luz dresses in to keep herself occupied. The setting is California in the near-future – a long drought has left the state barren; water has been pilfered from a number of ice caps and brought down south to accommodate the large population in the area around LA. Now, that water has run out and Californians are leaving the state in droves, living in refugee camps in Washington, Oregon, and as far east as Indiana and Ohio. Because of the drought, an enormous shifting desert has developed in the American Southwest, covering hundreds of thousands of miles.

Luz, who grew up in California and worked as a model before the world fell apart, and Ray, a former soldier turned surfer, don't want to leave California. One night, however, at a bonfire in the city, they happen upon a little girl, around two-years-old, who attaches herself to Luz. Drawn to the girl, Luz watches when her caretakers call her back to their fire. The girl's keepers are drug addicts and cruel men with girlfriends doped out on drugs, and after witnessing cruelty done to the baby at the hands of her caretakers, Ray and Luz decide to kidnap her.



With a baby now in tow, Ray and Luz realize that they aren't safe staying in California. They ask for help from some friends who can provide fake documents, and are directed to a settlement in the middle of the desert. Their friends give them supplies for the drive and for the baby, and Luz and Ray set out into the desolate, resource-less desert, where many go and few return.

In the desert, the car runs out of gas after a series of detours lead the couple and the baby, Ig, much farther afield than they anticipated. Ray walks off to find supplies, leaving Luz and Ig behind to die of heat exhaustion and dehydration in the desert. By a stroke of fortune, however, Luz and Ig are found by wanderers who run a settlement at the edge of the shifting sand dunes. They are taken in and given water, and Luz finds out that Ray has also been found – dead in the sand. At the settlement, Luz reinvents herself, learning how to properly care for Ig from a kind but firm older woman and starting a relationship with the local “prophet,” who runs the camp.

Surprise comes when Ray appears at the camp after the prophet tries to convince Luz to use her former fame and Ig to help save the settlement on the edge of the dunes. Luz refuses; when Ray arrives, she realizes that she has fallen for the prophet's spell – she is addicted to a root he has cultivated that has hallucinogenic powers, believing in the lies he tells about finding water. Ray, who has spent time in prison after being captured in the desert and learned about a renegade man stealing water from Red Cross trucks, knows the truth about the prophet and his magic water; he rescues Luz before it's too late.



Along the way, Claire Vaye Watkins creates a portrait of a world torn apart by poor climate decisions – the book features irradiated citizens of a town near Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste repository, and the “Mojav” refugees from California experience brutal mistreatment in camps and racism from “non-Mojavs.”

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of two books, Battleborn, a collection of short fiction, and Gold Fame Citrus. She has been listed as a “5 Under 30” by the National Book Foundation and won a number of awards for her work, including an NPR Best Short Stories of 2012 award, an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and others. She has said in interviews that her writing was heavily influenced by her parents, Martha and Paul Watkins. She describes her mother as a “great bullshitter”; her father, Paul, a former member of Charles Manson's family, gave testimony during the trial about Manson's idea of helter-skelter.