Set in a future where the USA offers dissolved and California is its independent republic, Lord of California follows the challenges from the Temple family members as they work at running a plantation on a nationalized land parcel in the central San Joaquin Valley. When the family patriarch, Elliot, dies, it’s exposed that he had been keeping five separate families, and in the aftermath of their finding, his widows and kids must get together to keep from shedding all they have. But their livelihood is usually threatened when Elliot’s estranged child tries to blackmail them, unleashing some violent confrontations between different factions from the family.A sparse family drama reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, combined with the intimate first-person narratives of Kazuo Ishiguro, Lord of California is a powerful debut novel.