Gold Fame Citrus (Thorndike Press Large Print Core) - Hardcover

Praise for "Battleborn"
"Dazzling." -"O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." -"Vogue"
"Absorbing... [Battleborn's] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one's personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins's strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable." -"The Boston Globe"
"Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein... The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional... Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side--wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape." -Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review"

Praise for "Battleborn"
"Dazzling." -"O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." -"Vogue"
"Absorbing... [Battleborn's] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one's personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins's strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable." -"The Boston Globe"
"Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein... The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional... Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side--wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape." -Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review"

Praise for "Battleborn"
Dazzling. "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." "Vogue"
"Absorbing [Battleborn s] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one s personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins s strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable. "The Boston Globe"
Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape. Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review""

Praise for"Gold Fame Citrus"
Exhilarating, upsetting, delirious, bold, "Gold Fame Citrus" is a head rush of a novel and establishes Claire Vaye Watkins as an important new voice in American literature. Louise Erdrich
"An extraordinary novel: relentlessly brilliant, utterly fearless, and often savagely funny. Watkins explores the maze of human thirst in all its forms. Here's a love story that tracks the mutating hopes of two lost souls, in prose that is fever-bright and ferociously assured, against the backdrop of the Great American Desert. More confirmation that Watkins is one of the brightest stars in our firmament."
--Karen Russell
"Gold Fame Citrus" is a sun-hammered fever dream, not unlike the shimmering, sweltering Southwest it depicts. Your heart will be wrung out by the journey of Luz, Raymond, and Ig. Your imagination will feast on the assured depiction of a near-future that is burnt to a crisp. And you ll hope it s all a mirage as Watkins renders a hot and very plausible future with the frightening force of a burning inevitability.
--Smith Henderson
A gripping, audacious novel, plausibly imagined in all its remarkable details. With Claire Vaye Watkins there was never promise: it was achievement from the start, and this book repays her admirers in spades."
--Thomas McGuane

Praise for "Battleborn"
Dazzling. "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." "Vogue"
"Absorbing [Battleborn s] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one s personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins s strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable. "The Boston Globe"
Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape. Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review""

Praise for"Gold Fame Citrus"
A tour-de-force first novel blisters with drought, myth, and originality .On each page [Watkins] spikes her novel with a ticking, musical intelligence Praised for writing landscape, Watkins grasp of the body is just as rousing. Into the vast desert she sets loose snakes and gurus, the Messianic pulse of end times. Critics will reference Annie Proulx s bite and Joan Didion s hypnotic West, but Watkins is magnificently original. "Kirkus"(starred)
Spectacular In Margaret Atwood mode, Watkins spikes this fast-moving, high-tension, sexyecocrisis saga with caustic parodies and resoundingallusions 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 "(starred)
Exhilarating, upsetting, delirious, bold, "Gold Fame Citrus" is a head rush of a novel and establishes Claire Vaye Watkins as an important new voice in American literature. Louise Erdrich
"An extraordinary novel: relentlessly brilliant, utterly fearless, and often savagely funny. Watkins explores the maze of human thirst in all its forms. Here's a love story that tracks the mutating hopes of two lost souls, in prose that is fever-bright and ferociously assured, against the backdrop of the Great American Desert. More confirmation that Watkins is one of the brightest stars in our firmament."
--Karen Russell
"Gold Fame Citrus" is a sun-hammered fever dream, not unlike the shimmering, sweltering Southwest it depicts. Your heart will be wrung out by the journey of Luz, Raymond, and Ig. Your imagination will feast on the assured depiction of a near-future that is burnt to a crisp. And you ll hope it s all a mirage as Watkins renders a hot and very plausible future with the frightening force of a burning inevitability.
--Smith Henderson
A gripping, audacious novel, plausibly imagined in all its remarkable details. With Claire Vaye Watkins there was never promise: it was achievement from the start, and this book repays her admirers in spades."
--Thomas McGuane

Praise for "Battleborn"
Dazzling. "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." "Vogue"
"Absorbing [Battleborn s] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one s personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins s strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable. "The Boston Globe"
Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape. Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review""

Praise for"Gold Fame Citrus"
Watkin s narrative is mythic and speculative, its sediment forming and re-forming in lists, treatises, and reports. The writing, with its tough sentimentality, is reminiscent of Denis Johnson s, but Watkins has a style of mordant observation all her own. -"Harper's
" At once beautiful and profoundly unsettling, ["Gold Fame Citrus"] sears its way into the brain, burning hot through the devastating journey and lingering long after the last page is turned. -"Elle"
"A masterly first novel." -"Vogue
""A blockbuster novel." -"Entertainment Weekly"
A tour-de-force first novel blisters with drought, myth, and originality .On each page [Watkins] spikes her novel with a ticking, musical intelligence Praised for writing landscape, Watkins grasp of the body is just as rousing. Into the vast desert she sets loose snakes and gurus, the Messianic pulse of end times. Critics will reference Annie Proulx s bite and Joan Didion s hypnotic West, but Watkins is magnificently original. "Kirkus"(starred)
Spectacular In Margaret Atwood mode, Watkins spikes this fast-moving, high-tension, sexyecocrisis saga with caustic parodies and resoundingallusions 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 "(starred)
Exhilarating, upsetting, delirious, bold, "Gold Fame Citrus" is a head rush of a novel and establishes Claire Vaye Watkins as an important new voice in American literature. Louise Erdrich, author of "The Round House"
"An extraordinary novel: relentlessly brilliant, utterly fearless, and often savagely funny. Watkins explores the maze of human thirst in all its forms. Here's a love story that tracks the mutating hopes of two lost souls, in prose that is fever-bright and ferociously assured, against the backdrop of the Great American Desert. More confirmation that Watkins is one of the brightest stars in our firmament."
--Karen Russell, author of "Swamplandia!"
"Gold Fame Citrus" is a sun-hammered fever dream, not unlike the shimmering, sweltering Southwest it depicts. Your heart will be wrung out by the journey of Luz, Raymond, and Ig. Your imagination will feast on the assured depiction of a near-future that is burnt to a crisp. And you ll hope it s all a mirage as Watkins renders a hot and very plausible future with the frightening force of a burning inevitability.
--Smith Henderson, author of" Fourth of July Creek"
A gripping, audacious novel, plausibly imagined in all its remarkable details. With Claire Vaye Watkins there was never promise: it was achievement from the start, and this book repays her admirers in spades."
--Thomas McGuane, author of "Crow Fair"

Praise for "Battleborn"
Dazzling. "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The most captivating voice to come out of the West since Annie Proulx - though it's to early Joan Didion that [Watkins] bears comparison for her arid humor and cut-to-the-chase knowingness." "Vogue"
"Absorbing [Battleborn s] true setting is a Faulknerian desert of the heart, where the soil is cursed by its precious metals and one s personal history can be just as toxic. Clear-eyed and nimble in parsing the lives of her Westerners, one of Watkins s strengths is not dodging that the simple fact that love can be tragic, involving, as it does, humans so flawed, so often tender and yet incapable. "The Boston Globe"
Although individual stories stand alone, together they tell the tale of a place, and of the population that thrives and perishes therein The historical sits comfortably alongside the contemporary and the factual nicely supplements the fictional Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape. Antonya Nelson, "The New York Times Book Review""

The much-anticipated first novel from a Story Prize-winning 5 Under 35 fiction writer.
In 2012, Claire Vaye Watkins s 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 harnesses the sweeping vision and deep heart that made her debut so arresting to a love story set in a devastatingly imagined near future:
Unrelenting drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. With the Central Valley barren, underground aquifer drained, and Sierra snowpack entirely depleted, most Mojavs, prevented by both armed vigilantes and an indifferent bureaucracy from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to internment camps. In Los Angeles Laurel Canyon, two young Mojavs Luz, once a poster child for the Bureau of Conservation and its enemies, and Ray, a veteran of the forever war turned surfer squat in a starlet s abandoned mansion. Holdouts, they subsist on rationed cola and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise.
The couple s fragile love somehow blooms in this arid place, and for the moment, it seems enough. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins. They head east, a route strewn with danger: sinkholes and patrolling authorities, bandits and the brutal, omnipresent sun. Ghosting after them are rumors of a visionary dowser a diviner for water and his followers, who whispers say have formed a colony at the edge of a mysterious sea of dunes.
Immensely moving, profoundly disquieting, and mind-blowingly original, Watkins s 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."