Gold Fame Citrus - Nicole Rondeau

I actually read my book over the summer and was able to finish the whole thing.  This has actually made things interesting for me as I was not sure what all I wanted to include in this first report.  Ive decided to just give a brief overview of the first part of the book.  I wanted to set up the story and what is going on so you guys could get a sense of what life is like for the main characters.  For the final presentation, I will continue where I left in the story and I will also dive deeper into the underlying themes of the book.

Gold Fame Citrus

Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkings was published in 2015.  This book takes place in Southern California and is set in the “near future”.  California has become an arid wasteland.  All the water has dried up, only dessert plants sparse the landscape, and the now desert wildlife is seldom seen.  At this point, although the West is veined with aqueducts, snaking their way from California to Alaska, they have all been shut down as states have sued each other for the right to the water.  The Southwest has become pocked with giant sinkholes, as the ground water sources have been drained.  Wildfires burn unimpeded.  The Amargosa, the ever-growing "dune sea" made of sand blown from the once fertile crescent and the Great Plains, now swallow up everything, taking the place of what was once the Mojave desert.

In the beginning, most Californians, now known as “Mojavs”, began their mass evacuation, to other states in order to take refuge in "temporary" internment camps.  Now, most states were no longer taking evacuation applications.  Not only that, the displaced Mojavs had become viewed as undesirables.  California was now the land of misfits.  Only those who had made the initial decision to stay in California remained, and they were pretty much left to their own accord.  The only governance or aid that was provided came by way of the Red Cross, with their daily helpings of rations.  Luz and Ray were among these people who remained in California.

This story is told mainly through the view point of the main character, Luz Dunn, but on occasion it switches to the view points of other characters as it best suits the story.  The other main character is Ray.  Although, Luz and Ray met back when evac from California was still a plausible option, they decided to remain in California and stick it out together.  He joked with Luz on the day they first met saying, “California people are quitters.  No offense.  It’s just that you’ve got restlessness in your blood. . . Your people came here looking for something better.  Gold, fame, citrus.  Mirage.  They were feckless, yeah?  Schemers.  That’s why no one wants them now.  Mojavs.”

Luz and Ray live in an abandoned mansion up in the Los Angeles canyons.  They live day to day and don't really have plans for the future.  Ray comes up with projects and procurement missions to keep himself busy; and Luz spends most of her days either sleeping, reading, or trying on the abandoned clothes of rich people.  This is how they live, unencumbered by their troubled pasts or by worries of their futures... Up until the night they save a toddler named Ig, from a negligent group of delinquents.

Luz and Ray were now forced to think about what was best for this child.  They decided that they would have to leave California to provide Ig a more promising future.  But, they could not simply move to another state, as they did not have the proper documentation to do so.  It was also impossible for them to acquire it, since they did not have Ig' birth certificate.  The issue was made worse by the fact that they also could not simply sneak into a different state, since most states now guarded their borders.  In an unforeseen predicament, Luz and Ray are forced to seek help from the only people they believe can help, Lonnie and Rita, the "bohemian radicals" that Ray used to associate with.  They pack up "the Melon" (Ray's trusty grass-green Karmann Ghia) and head to Lonnie and Rita's compound... 

(I will pick the story back up during my final report/presentation)

Failed Solutions - A Real World Commonality

The environmental distress described in the story had been going on long before Luz and Ray were born.  Luz mentions how, “the skies were batshit back then”, referring to all the different measures people were taking to try to produce some sort of relief for the ever-worsening drought.  She talks about how they draped valleys under invisible parachutes of aerosol, dynamited the sky, and used cloud seeders (“barn-size miracle machines promised to spit crystalline moisture-making chemicals into the atmosphere”).  At first, I thought these were all just fictional solutions arrived upon by fictional people in the story, but I did some further research and found out that all these ideas have actually, at some point in time, been thought of as possible real-life solutions to drought.  Although, there is no substantial evidence that any of them are plausible solutions, there is still research going on today involving these methods.  

I will be discussing some of these in my presentation, but if you are naturally curious, like myself, and are interested in finding out about these “solutions”, here are links to some websites where I found some of my information.

Cloud Seeding:  PNAS: Precipitation Formation From Orographic Cloud Seeding

AEROSOLS: NASA: Aerosols

DYNAMITED SKY:   The Smithsonian: When the US Government Tried to Make It Rain by Exploding Dynamite in the Sky

QUIZ QUESTIONS:
1) Where does story take place?  
2) Who does the term "Mojav" describe?
3) Who are the two main characters?
4)  What causes the two main characters to want to leave California?
5)  Name a method, mentioned in the book, used to try to solve the drought problem.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1)  Would you have left California or would you have stayed like Luz and Ray?  What factors would you have considered when making this decision?
2)  Why do you think Ig's presence changed the way Luz and Ray viewed their situation?
3)  Do you think money will ever become insignificant?
4)  Do you think the setting Watkins creates is believable?  Do you think things could/ will ever get to this point?
5)  Do you think it was a good strategy for the Bureau to use a child to garner support for their cause? Do you find anything wrong with this plan?