by Janice L. Newman

What does the state of California mean to you? Does it conjure up images of sunny beaches and miles of orange trees? Does it make you think of the “fruits and nuts”: the non-conformists, the hippies, the cultists, and the weirdos? Does it bring to mind images of rebellious students, rioting cities, and police brutality?

For me, California means “home”. It’s all of those things and their opposites as well, large enough to hold Christian conservatives just one town over from the spaciest of space-age religions, the loggers destroying the redwoods and the conservationists desperately trying to save them, violent demonstrations and countless people living peaceful, everyday lives.

It’s hard to capture the true breadth of California. Most Californians can’t see it themselves; the life of a San Francisco bartender is wildly different from that of an itinerant farm worker. It’s even harder to make all of it interesting; to not fall into the trap of so many history classes and present dull lists of facts and figures and a cut and dried series of historical events, draining all life and color from the truth.

The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California not only succeeds in bringing California to life in all its contradictory glory, it makes it compelling and fascinating. As an encapsulation of California’s history it’s brilliant. As a study of how the rest of the United States of America follows in the wake of California’s influence, it’s provocative. As both a love letter to the state and a warning of what a large-scale disaster might mean for it and for the rest of the world, it’s very, very, clever.

Penned by Curt Gentry, The Late, Great State is a series of essays about California, some from the distant past, most about its recent history. The essays cover many angles: the disappearing redwood forests, the bawdy history of the town of Jackson and its brothel, the farm worker strikers and their charismatic leader Cesar Chavez, the tragedy of the Watts riots, a sweet, melancholic piece on Marilyn Monroe, and many more. Each essay is engaging in itself, but throughout the book also run two threads: how Ronald Reagan became governor, and how the great California earthquake destroyed large swaths of the most populated areas of the state.

Wait, I can hear you saying, back up a minute. I know there was an earthquake in 1906, but what’s this “great California earthquake” you’re talking about?

Therein lies the genius of this book. Despite having a well-researched historical grounding (it even has an index!), this is a work of fiction. It envisions a world where the California of today, 1969, the California we all know and love (or love to hate), experiences a violent, unprecedented earthquake that causes the loss of most of the major cities, a huge amount of farmland, and uncountable lives.

Most of the book is not about the disaster. Most of the book is about setting up California as a character. Less than a fifth of the book is devoted to lovingly describing the cities crumbling, the dams breaking, the fires raging – and the aftermath of these things. And even in these last pages, Gentry manages to sneakily teach the reader more tidbits about California. A list of the crops California provides to the nation would have been boring. A list of crops that are now rationed and no longer available in any store because their fields in California don’t exist any more – that’s shocking. And memorable!

For all that the subject matter might seem morbid, it’s told in a matter-of-fact way that I found gripping, like watching a disaster play out on the news from a safe distance. In this case, the distance is that of reality. The world of The Late, Great State is not real…but maybe it could be, one universe over.

I give this book my highest recommendation. Californians will love it. Non-Californians will find it fascinating. You’re guaranteed to learn something, even as you enjoy the descriptions of the disaster that hasn’t happened…

Yet.

Five Stars