The Rain Artist by Claire Rudy Foster
Preorder for February 24, 2024! Book One in the Clepsydra Series.
In a future where rain is a luxury enjoyed exclusively by the ultra-rich, the world’s only umbrella-maker is framed for the high-profile murder of the quadrillionaire patriarch who controls the earth’s last natural resources. Beautiful and horrific, The Rain Artist is pitched as a Tarantino-tinted Brazil meets The Golden Compass and asks the question of how art and artists can thrive under commercialized capitalism.
The Rain Artist started as a short story published in O: The Oprah Magazine and was included as a notable story in the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 anthology by editors Rebecca Roanhorse and John Joseph Adams. The novel is the first in a series set in the immediate future of our mutating planet.
About the author: Claire Rudy Foster's debut short story collection, Shine of the Ever, was named as one of the best LGBTQ books of the year by O: The Oprah Magazine and was a finalist for the Foreword INDIE Awards. The book was selected for the ALA 2021 Over the Rainbow Fiction and Poetry Longlist.
Foster's essays and fiction have appeared in many places, including The New York Times, Black Static, Lit Hub, The Guardian, Mic, McSweeney's, and Catapult. Their writing has been recognized with four Pushcart Prize nominations. Foster is the co-writer of the bestselling nonfiction book Unsettled: How the Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Failed the Victims of the American Overdose Crisis, which was named the "best bankruptcy book in the world" and one of Ralph Nader’s top picks of the year.
“From covering the lavish rain parties to the hectic underworld, the prose is deliberate. Its rhythm is engaging, too, pulling the story along even through the unsettling moments. The worldbuilding is extrapolated from modern social issues, including women’s rights, wealth inequality, and climate change; it’s a bleak window into an uncomfortable potential future. Every element of life has a price, and those who can’t pay sink to the bottom and fade away. Strong social commentary overlays the grim dystopian novel The Rain Artist, in which creativity and humanity are at risk of excision.” —Foreword Reviews
“The Rain Artist is an evocative feast of all-too relevant eco and dystopian horror backdropped by smart, compelling storytelling that echoes the literary odysseys of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Remarkable characters, disturbing, and perpetually beautiful. Celine Broussard is about to become everybody's new favorite heroine. C. R. Foster's brilliant, award-winning writing shines brightest in this apocalyptic, page-turning novel.” —Kayli Scholz, author of Saint Grit
“A deluge of talent & surrealism engulfs the senses in The Rain Artist. Part Le Guin, part Mary Shelley, it is a moving picture guiding you through its lavish rooms.” —Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins, poet and publisher, Resurrection Press
“The Rain Artist offers us a glimpse of a mad-hatter, horror show of a future that feels all too possible. Foster is a more soulful Philip K. Dick, as focused on the inner lives of the troubled, colorful characters who inhabit this novel as the high-concept, adrenaline-fueled mystery that will keep you turning the pages.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Dark Net, The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding
“... an otherworldly, Atwood-esque dystopia.” —Michelle Hart, Books Editor, O: The Oprah Magazine
Looking for a digital download of this title? Fill out the preorder form! We’ll contact you when it’s available.