Los Angeles Is Burning

I did not expect Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower to be quite so prescient or timely as I picked up a hardcover copy from a bookstore shelf. But her story of a young Black woman surviving in a society that is slowly collapsing held more than a few parallels for today, if not tomorrow. Set in the northern part of a decaying Los Angeles, people huddle in walled communities, attempting to avoid the chaos of drug-induced arson and simple survival in the wider world.

Other summaries of the book will do it more justice, but I would list some of the coincidental parallels of the book to our era.

• Drug-induced pyromania, that encourages users to set and enjoy fires, watching the world burn
• A president Christopher Donner, who promises to privatize parts of the government, make laws and regulations more friendly to businesses, and, as taken from Regan, “Make America great again”
• Huddled groups of addicted and desperate homeless people, with no one to help them
• Corporate towns that use methods of entrapment to entice and confine people into a cycle of indentured servitude

I recommend reading this book, especially now. I had always wanted to explore authors like Butler, Atwood, and Le Guin when I had learned of their works, but I had never been steered towards them in my formative years. I’m glad I found Butler at this time (I’d read Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale a few years ago), and I would encourage you to do the same.