The Evolution of Love

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

“She’d told herself, and her husband Tom, that she was coming to rescue Vicky. And she was. She would. She’d been rescuing her sister her entire life. But she’d never done anything remotely this extreme. She knew the region had been evacuated, and yet somehow hadn’t pictured everyone literally gone. . .The stark, devastated landscape heightened all her senses, as if her fear made the colors deeper, the smells headier, the sounds crisper. She couldn’t give in to the terror; if she did, it might never end. She had no choice but to finish what she’d begun.”

A devastating earthquake has just hit the San Francisco Bay Area, cutting off the outside world completely. When Lily decides to fly from Nebraska to California and make the treacherous journey into the Bay Area to find her sister, she knows she's headed for a disaster zone, but nothing prepares her for what she finds.

Those who survived and didn’t evacuate are making shelters, running meals programs, rigging their own technologies—and redefining the very meaning of community. Lily bands together with a couple of feral kids, a steadfast activist, and a bonobo researcher, among others, to forge a new life.

A piercing, unforgettable story of hope in the face of crisis, The Evolution of Love asks what does it take for people to come together, what dangers must they fend off in their bid for survival, and what lengths will they go to rebuild home.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 2018

About the author

Preorder Lucy's new novel, TELL THE REST, about love, rage, and redemption, at https://amzn.to/3QRyHXD. The New York Times says Lucy Jane Bledsoe's novel, A THIN BRIGHT LINE, "triumphs." Ms. Magazine calls her novel, THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, "fabulous feminist fiction." Her 2018 collection of stories, LAVA FALLS, won the Devil's Kitchen Fiction Award. Bledsoe played basketball in both high school and college. As a social justice activist, she's passionate about working for voting rights.

Reviews

[Elaine Burnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bledsoe jumps right into the story in a very good way. Good opening hook. Lily is jumping down into an earthquake-caused crevasse in a highway. Immediately you know something is off about this world. I did have some problems with it. She didn’t convince me that this earthquake, that only seemed to affect Berkeley and Oakland, could have caused the weird alternative social order to arise, or to keep emergency workers from coming in to rescue people and retrieve bodies (they were buried where they were found, complicating Lily’s search for her sister). She cites a Rebecca Solnit book about societies that arise after disaster, but would those be on a larger scale? Katrina, Puerto Rico, Japan, or Indonesia? New language get invented immediately, like Cluster, apparently used and understood by everyone in this area even if they’ve had no contact with each other. Just didn’t win me over. Lily was not trapped in this hell. No one was, really. Even the poor could walk out and probably find a shelter. She simply didn’t make the case for what she lays out. I liked the characters well enough, though, and I always enjoy Bledsoe's writing.

[Barbara Ridley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eclectic group of characters navigate the challenges of survival in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake on the Hayward fault in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a resident of the area, this novel had an obvious appeal to me, and Bledsoe has created a compelling version of what this "worst case scenario" could look like. The main protagonist is an outsider, Lily, who arrives from Nebraska to search for her sister, and along the way encounters a woman who is running an emergency food bank, orphaned teenagers, her sister's ex-lover who keeps hyenas in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus, a grieving blogger, and her longtime pen pal who has returned to Berkeley after years in the Congo in a bonobo sanctuary. Well-written with beautiful descriptions. There's plenty of suspense and adventure, albeit somewhat improbable, with a lot of death and loss, but this is ultimately a story of triumph and the rebuilding of community after disaster.

[Darlene Vendegna · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Lucy Jane Bledsoe's latest novel, a group of people from vastly different backgrounds and experiences are brought together in the wake of a disaster level earthquake in the Bay Area. The story is told from some of their perspectives, so the reader gets some direct insight into their insights and motivations. Lily is the main protagonist, a housewife from Nebraska, who comes to Oakland/Berkeley, on purpose, in hopes of finding and saving her sister. Saving her sister is what she's always done, whether saving her from her own misguided choices or from circumstances beyond her control. Lily is not only searching for her sister but also searching for some more meaning and purpose to her own life, a search she doesn't even realize she needs to make. Each person that Lily meets; from Annie & Binky, two teenagers struggling to survive the now very mean streets of their city, to Kalisha, who runs a food program at a church, beleaguered by lack of funds, circumstances and 'wild' children like Annie & Binky, from Sal, Lily's sister's exgirlfriend to Travis, Lily's pen pal since junior high and a Bonobo researcher, every person enlightens Lily in some way. As every single person she encounters struggles to find their own path and ways of love and life, they each fill in an empty space for Lily and show her what love can truly mean.
Lily not only finds depths within herself she never knew existed but helps some of her new friends along the way. Each character turns out to be, not exactly as they initially seem when Lily first encounters them. Part of the journey of this lovely book is getting to know them. This is a book I will reread again and again, finding new nuggets every time, I'm sure. I rarely give a book five stars, but this deserved it. I was given an ARC of this book prepublication, and I feel honored to be able to give it such a glowing review.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one. Interesting characters in a crazy but realistic-seeming post-earthquake Bay Area.

[Marcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title The Evolution Of Love can, unfortunately, sound sentimental or trite, when the book itself is anything but. Imagining a post-earthquake, apocalyptic City of Berkeley, Lucy Jane Bledsoe has woven a number of situations and themes into a story that is by turns terrifying, heart-warming, suspenseful, and thought-provoking. Apocalyptic societies, of course, bring out the best and worst in human behavior, and Bledsoe uses her setting to explore the theme of human evolution, repeatedly raising the question, What If…?
What if a broken landscape gave humanity the chance to start from scratch?
What if survival of the fittest is not a battle for ascendancy but a flourishing of traits that promote caring for others of one’s species?
What if we behaved less like apes and more like bonobos, the species that focuses primarily on pleasure and cooperation?

The plot of TEOL revolves around Lily, who leaves her Nebraska home to try and find her sister Vicky, who’s been living in Berkeley and still hasn’t made contact in the ten days after the earthquake. Lily’s journey becomes an adventure that alters her profoundly; in fact from this reader’s perspective she saves herself as well as Vicky (who maybe didn’t really need saving). Along the way the what-if’s mount, shift, raise new questions and not a lot of answers. Bledsoe, who’s lived in Berkeley for many years, knows her subject well, and her writing style is smooth, straightforward and easy to digest.

TEOL is what we used to call a really good read, and it’s a must for anyone living in the Bay Area.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bledoe's writing is a pleasure to read. Her use of language is often stunning -- requiring reading sentences several times to take in their poetry. This latest book weaves together philosophy, science, and fiction in ways that her previous books have done, and is similarly moving. Compelling themes in her previous books such as self-deception, courage, and identity are also present here. I particularly liked that the plot shifted in unexpected ways, as it could have easily become cliched.

I very much appreciate how Bledsoe includes skin color as part of the description of all of her characters -- not just the characters of color: a matter of implicit bias that white authors usually make, and that editors do not tend to correct.

I'm tempted to give this book four instead of five stars because I didn't feel as much empathy for the main character as I think the author intended, and I can't put my finger on why. Additionally, some of the characters felt like prototypes: Wesley and Kalima in particular. I liked the Sal/Vicky relationship, and thought the characters of Annie and Travis were more realistic and better developed.

However, the ideas presented in this book are profound, and are truly food for thought. Reading a book rooted in optimism during this terribly pessimistic era was very inspiring, and I thank Bledsoe for the experience. Sharing in a vision of hope for humanity is well worth five stars.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most dangerous elements of a natural disaster are often the survivors, as Lily discovers when she impulsively flies from her Nebraska home and husband to find her sister, who hasn't been heard from since a major earthquake destroyed much of the East Bay (Berkeley, Oakland).

Lily finds pockets of community, generous people and some desperate loners and as she participates in efforts to share, rebuild and endure after the quake. Not only are homes uprooted and collapsed, but her life, and that of others she meets and connects with, who are forced to change by necessity, sometimes not in a good way. Feral teenagers, elders with regretful pasts, and radical techies all intermix as Lily struggles to rebuild her sense of purpose as her needs are stripped down to a tent, a bicycle and foraging for food.

Elements of the post-quake city are described in detail. The philosophical themes in the book, and its relation to bonobo apes, get a thorough exploration. Can a community based on love and altruism survive and endure?

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting novel about love and the power of community set within the backdrop of a natural disaster. Bledsoe's writing and pacing are fantastic, she doles out the details and elements of the story at an engaging rhythm and there is hardly a dull moment. I felt some of her characters were a little underdeveloped, or overdeveloped and then underused.

I'm not sure how realistic the natural diaster elements of the story were, it felt weird how the rest of the country wasn't affected at all? and because literally right outside of Berkeley and Oakland, and even pockets of those areas, were still fully functioning it made it harder to believe that everyone would be so committed to staying in the disaster zone? But I think that plays into the themes of the story, of the power of community, and the possibility of societies built around altruism and love. At some points, I did find the repetitive hammering of love and the bonobos kind of annoying - like I get it the bonobos are better than humans... you don't have to constantly remind me...

[Genanne Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was swept up in this novel from the very first pages, when Lily walks down an eerie, empty freeway in northern California en route to find her eccentric sister after a devastating natural disaster. This is a page-turner about how community comes together in Berkeley after a major quake — but it also carefully attends to its cast of well-observed, compelling characters and wrestles with big ideas about our shared future. It’s a love letter to Berkeley and to human possibility, exploring humans’ potential to evolve in ways that might create a different, better world for all of us. Highly engaging and highly recommended.

[Anissa Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book after a week of reading. I took a bit longer than I usually do (2-3 days)- not because it was a tough read, but because I found myself savoring the characters’ words, thoughts, adventure. What a thoughtful coming of age story. A fictional story, but an intellectual journey, supported with documented research ... I don’t have the words, except to say ‘I know I will find myself re-reading this book, feeling new feelings and learning new lessons.’ Thank you!

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Bledsoe's writing and will read anything she publishes. Maybe this was disconcerting because it's the fictional account of the devastation of Berkeley, my neighborhood. Imagining the transformation, hiking the fire trail where the main character sets up camp, remembering the hyenas. Good characters, slightly unbelievable setting in its entirety.

[Katie Carman-Lehach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the typical kind of book I read but I was lured into it at the library by the setting of an earthquake ravaged California. The story that unfolds beyond that though is filled with compelling characters, an engaging narrative of discovery all written in a beautiful, vibrant prose.

[Alena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I never quite warmed up to this. I enjoyed the writing, but the world-building seemed shaky and kept taking me out of the story.

I liked the beginning in that I always enjoy being thrown into unknown circumstances in a book but overall the events seem very improbable to me.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough read; puzzling relationships. I am not sure I could survive what these characters have.

[Mary Waitrovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.