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""

Haunting and beautifully written first novel by the award-winning author of Battleborn, set among a cult of survivors in a dystopian American desert