In the Heart of the Valley of Love

by Cynthia Kadohata

Book Overview

"An apocalyptic picture of America on the brink of civil disorder and social collapse. . . . The writing is lucid and finely honed, often lyrical and occasionally magical."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Cynthia Kadohata explores human relationships in a Los Angeles of the future, where rich and poor are deeply polarized and where water, food, and gas, not to mention education, cannot be taken for granted. There is an intimate,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520207289
• ISBN13: 9780520207288
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Like Riddley Walker, this is a book for our century.

Except it has a much quieter voice.This isn't your usual post-disaster novel. I wouldn't even call it science fiction. There's no enabling device or novum or whatever Darko Suvin calls it. I suppose it is what I would term 'speculative' fiction. What I would call it is beautiful.Francie is a Japanese-American girl drifting pretty aimlessly in 2052. She lives in Los Angeles, quite frequently she goes out into the desert with her aunt's boyfriend on a semi-legit trading trip. The government sounds like it's in trouble, there are rich parts of town where life is continuing pretty much as normal, but most people live in cramped apartments and make do with semi-legit work and collecting and selling whatever they can find: sliding doors, clothes, plants. Someone's going to want it. You are allocated water and gas chits, anyone can go to college, it's something that you do more to give you something to do than anything else, a community center of sorts.Everyone feels aimless, like something's just happened or someone's just died and you're in shock and don't know what to do about it. The thing that makes this book so wonderful is the depth of Francies voice and the observations she makes. Francie's narrative is detached... but she and the reader both know that she's looking for something, that there must be something that means something, for her to find. I devoured this book because I loved the simplicity and subjectivity of Francie's voice... such an quiet and individual view of the destination our century is taking us toward is rare. Most speculative fiction that deals with a post-distaster or post-government theme is fairly didactic. There are things to be said and points to be made and people to be convinced. Kadahota's not interested in any of that. She's just written a story about a young woman in the city and the desert who's trying to make sense of her life, but the subjectivity of the narrative reveals the political and social upheaval of Francie's world in such a subtle and believable way that this book convinced me of many things when other, more didactic fiction has failed me.If there are three things I'm interested in they are: People's responses to their landscapes, coming of age stories and post-disaster fiction. This book fulfullied all those needs as if I'd written it myself, or willed it into existence upon the shelf of my local library. The book is tied together well with a more central purpose for Francie than just finding 'meaning'. Her uncle goes missing in the desert, perhaps he has been arrested maybe he just disappeared, and Francie's narrative and coming of age experience seem to have been sparked by this event, it becomes a central concern.The thing that made me laugh and cry the most in this book was how superstitious Francie is, she thinks plants have feelings, she carries a twig and stone around in her pocket to represent her dead parents, she writes her name on pieces of paper and throws them into the win

Only *realistic* futuristic novel I've read

Most sci-fi books seem to re-hash the same stuff that's been around since the 30s: robots, colonizing other planets, alien invaders, etc. Sometimes that can still make for a good book-- I liked most of Isaac Asimov's robot books for instance-- but usually they just end up resembling mediocre Star Trek episodes. William Gibson injected a little newness with his focus on computers, but there's only so much cyber-slang I can take before it too dissolves into standard sci-fi fare; concerned more with the gadgets and psuedo-science than with any of the characters or storyline."In the Heart of the Valley of Love" falls into none of these traps. It's really much more of a regular novel than anything you'd find sitting in the Science Fiction/Fantasy rack. It's set in LA in the second half of the 21st century-- a "dystopian" LA if you really want-- but even though this may sound a lot like Blade Runner and it's many clones, the author avoids stocking her LA with flying cars, androids, or spaceships. The technology isn't really any further along than it is today actually, and because of this Cynthia Kadohata earns my eternal respect. I don't know why it's so hard for sci-fi authors to restrain themselves when they try to imagine what we'll all be using in the future, but I guess that's what the customers pay for. Everyone wants the flying cars and warp travel, but here we are in 2001 and I still drive to work.Maybe it's closer to the Mad Max movies than anything else, but instead of a world blasted back into the Stone Age, it's more of a portrait of a society that's going downhill. Her understated style of prose brings far more of a sense of dread and paranoia than anything Stephen King tries to shock you with. It really feels like the main character is a product of her decaying society, that she keeps her sentences short and to the point so as not to make any trouble, to keep a low profile. Most of the characters talk and act like they have a protective wall around them, that they've been dulled to the misery around them, too scared to show any true feelings. One of the best parts of the book are these people sarcastically referred to as "chirps" who try to compensate by trying to be sunshine happy all the time.I highly recommend giving "In the Heart of the Valley of Love" a look.