The End of California - A Gripping Novel by Cory Doctorow | Dystopian Fiction, Cyberpunk Thriller | Perfect for Book Clubs & Sci-Fi Fans
$16.92
$22.57
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The End of California - A Gripping Novel by Cory Doctorow | Dystopian Fiction, Cyberpunk Thriller | Perfect for Book Clubs & Sci-Fi Fans
$16.92
$22.57
25% Off
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SKU: 99305369
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Description
A PEN/Faulkner finalist for Prisoners of War, Steve Yarbrough returns to the Mississippi Delta—seen through the historical lens of World War II in that novel, and of Jim Crow in his previous, Visible Spirits—but now in the blinding light of contemporary life.Loring is the sort of town children dream of leaving and most adults return to only in the absence of better options. But after twenty-five years Pete Barrington—having escaped to California on a football scholarship and then established himself as a doctor, only to be brought low by scandal—has come home. Here he finds solace with his closest old friend, opens a new practice, and daily runs into memories he’d rather forget, even as his aggravated wife and unsettled daughter contend with this wholly alien society.Meanwhile, Alan DePoyster has come to revel in his family life and his position in the church and community—the sort of idyll snatched away from him in childhood and won back only with patience and faith. Yet he now feels old grudges against the prodigal Barrington eroding his sense of accomplishment; and as their lives inevitably become intertwined, his rage against the forces chiseling away at his values and beliefs soon threatens to destroy everything he cherishes. The End of California is a vivid, even shocking, portrait of small-town life, where people turn to booze, gossip, and feckless sex in their struggles with provincial claustrophobia, where fates often hang in the balance of personal history, and where the sins of the fathers and mothers are visited most acutely on their sons and daughters. This is the most expansive, generous, and moving novel thus far from “a confident and elegant prose stylist,” as David Guterson has described him, “a storyteller who knows how empty spaces can resonate with power and meaning.”
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Reviews
*****
Verified Buyer
5
I read one of Steve Yarbrough's earlier novels, The Oxygen Man, years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, and decided to go back and back to read this one because I'm eagerly anticipating his new novel, The Realm of Last Chances, which is due out in August. I'm so glad I did. From the outset, the characters are so interesting and the inciting incident establishes a marvelously intriguing premise. A doctor is on the run from California with his family because of some scandal. He is heading to his hometown of Loring, Mississippi where decades earlier he was the high school football hero and the center of another scandal, when he slept with a classmate's mother.That classmate has spent years dealing with the aftermath of that age-inappropriate affair, which caused his father to walk out on him and his mother, but now the son has his life is in order as he manages the town grocery store and serves as a deacon in his church. The arrival of his old nemesis upsets the apple cart, though, and even more unbearable is the fact that his son and the former football hero's daughter become boyfriend and girlfriend. These circumstances set a lot of wheels in motion. The story is told from the multiple perspectives of Pete Barrington, the doctor/football hero, his daughter, his wife, and Alan, the grocery story manger, and his son, who plays on the high school football team, and for which Pete decides to serve as an assistant coach. Every one of the characters is interesting and fully realized. Midway through a crime takes place (which I won't give away), but the novel, while becoming more suspenseful, doesn't turn into a genre story or fall into the predictable plotting of a crime novel. It remains a rich character study, showing how all the characters react to and suffer from that event.For the past few years, I've been trying to read new novels in the year they come out, but I'm so glad I went back to the well for this one. As a reader, it's great to be in the hands of a truly talented writer, and in my mind Yarbrough pulls off every element of this story in masterful fashion.
