Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins is a fever dream of a novel set in an imagined near future where the drought in Southern California has reached extreme measures and everyone except a few stragglers have been evacuated. Luz and Ray, squatting in a starlet’s mansion, are drifting through the days playing house until they encounter a child and decide to head east and look for a better life.

The Amargosa, a huge dune sea growing and swallowing everything in its wake is overtaking the Southwest. Vaye Watkins has created a plausible future in this upsetting, original and gripping novel.  Some of the characters encountered along the way seemed a bit cliche to me, and the plot seemed to get lost, but the fabulous writing made up for it. A great new voice in fiction.