W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

$24.95/256 pgs

Review by Denton Loving

Short story writer Mary Miller (Big World, 2009) makes the transition to the long form in her debut novel, The Last Days of California.  In this novel, the last days refer to the last three days of life on Earth before the Rapture.  Fifteen year old Jess, the daughter of a fundamentalist Christian family from Alabama, narrates this tale.  When a prophet named Marshall predicts the end of the world, Jess’s father feels assured that their family (Jess, her sister Elise, their father and mother) are among the chosen who will disappear from the Earth and be rewarded with eternity in Heaven.  The family embarks on a road trip to California, where, because of time zones, calculations show the Rapture will end. Jess’s father wants to be in California, so the family can, ostensibly, spread the word of the Rapture and save some souls in the final days—before it’s too late.  The purpose of the trip is juxtaposed by the family’s careless spending and even more so by the adventures the sisters have in the evenings at the various hotels where the travelers stay on the journey.

In what could easily be viewed as the road trip from Hell—rather than to Heaven—these four family members are forced to examine their religious beliefs, as well as their relationships with each other and their views of themselves.  Like all good fictional families, this one is complicated.  The father has lost his job prior to their trip to California, and details suggest that sudden losses of employment are a frequent occurrence.  He is also diabetic but chooses not to follow a diabetic diet since he plans to be raptured before it matters.  The older daughter, Elise, doesn’t follow the family’s religious beliefs and is openly hostile to the rest of the family.  Jess is the only person who knows Elise’s biggest secret: she is pregnant.  Their mother, who has given up Catholicism for her husband’s fundamentalism, is struggling to hold the family together. Continue reading →