I think a lot of us like to think that we have control over our lives to a great extent, or that we can wrest control when we don’t have any. The book explores fear and the depths it can lead you to in trying to control it. In the book, the preppers pretty much want to survive, but they end up trying to form a community in their house. Somewhere, there was a major split – that surprised me. But a lot of the historical movements actually seem to be more community-based: We have our town where we can grow enough food for everyone. I think a lot of the modern prepping is very individualistic – very much just me and my bunker and my guns and my food and don’t come visit me. Seeing what preparedness meant to different people ended up as the background material of the book.
I don’t want to call the Black Panthers doomsday preppers, per se, but they had this idea of self-sufficiency – a community that was kind of separate from the rest of the greater American economy. I also wanted to know, how are Black people approaching prepping that might be different from, say, the Bundys? There’s a history of prepping movements in the United States, like the homesteaders and the self-sufficiency movements. A lot of folks love to talk about what their preparations are.
In terms of the research, I found Black survivalists online. Was there a moment or event that drove you to decide on doomsday preppers as the subject of your book?
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. In comedically exploring how people make decisions that take them down a radical rabbit hole, “The Survivalists” observes how fear driven by disasters from hurricanes to crushing debt can swallow up who we used to be. But the pressures of her work, fear of failure, lack of familial and societal safety nets and a search for meaning somehow lead Aretha down a strange path: selling guns with Aaron’s roommates, living on soy nutrition bars, huddling in bunkers and planning how to survive an apocalypse. Related: Sign up for our free newsletter about books, authors, reading and moreįor the main character Aretha, the story starts with perfect dates with coffee-selling business owner Aaron. In the pre-pandemic era, these people were largely depicted in popular culture as paranoid loons or super-serious reality show contestants.īut anyone can potentially be radicalized into a doomsday prepper, theorizes Kashana Cauley, writer for the animated TV show “The Great North” and former staff writer for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” In her first novel, “The Survivalists,” out now from Soft Skull Press, Cauley explores how it might occur for a successful Black lawyer looking for love while vying for partnership at her firm in New York City. Whether anticipating government standoffs or a zombie apocalypse, they are preparing for total societal and economic collapse. Doomsday preppers, or survivalists, are those who take planning for worst-case scenarios to the next level.
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