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“A unique, alarming portrayal of the American military-industrial complex, the crisis of climate change, and the nature of truth and despair. Baumgart's dreamlike, nonlinear narrative is composed of dizzying juxtapositions, illuminating the parallels and paradoxes of modernity and antiquity, devastation and healing, science and the supernatural. Resisting simple answers and constantly challenging assumptions, the author explores collective and personal anxieties surrounding human-nature relationships and the planet's current peril, interwoven with childhood nostalgia and reflections on family, loss, and time. Nearly indescribable and utterly engrossing, this book is an urgent and terrifying cultural reflection, a startling look in the mirror.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A devastating artistic achievement.”—Foreword Reviews

“In today’s political climate, China Lake is frighteningly timely.”—The Brooklyn Rail

“No two ways about it, Barret Baumgart’s China Lake is a brilliant, often hilarious, and thoroughly original work of nonfiction that looks at climate change and many other things, important or not, through the exploration of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in the Mojave Desert. Baumgart, dragging on his ever-powered-up e-cig and listening to his cherished heavy metal whenever he can, takes us on a tour of paranoiac conspiracy thought, petroglyphs, cloud seeding, chemtrails, climate manipulation, his mother’s brain and body, the Pentagon, New Ageism, and numerous other mesmeric curiosities. China Lake is an apocalypse of the weird. In places it is wildly funny. I found myself bursting into laughter, slapped by startling eruptions of wit and humor. The book is unfailingly entertaining, keenly intelligent, and, in fact, is an almost shamefully good read.”—Richard Preston, author, The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus 

“This is an astonishing debut. At once tragic and hilarious, frightening and timely. China Lake is our most provocative and personal statement on humanity’s failure to come to grips with the monstrous reality of climate change.”—John D’Agata

“Prehistoric shamans, weather warfare, chemtrails, geo-engineering: Baumgart ties these disparate threads into a fast-paced, engaging and very personal narrative about our greatest existential threat: rapidly changing global climate. This is an important book, marking the appearance of a talented and distinctive new literary voice.”—David S. Whitley, author, Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief

“John Hawkes spoke of the ‘terrifying similarity between the unconscious desires of the solitary man and the disruptive needs of the visible world.’ What I find most impressive about this remarkable book is Barret Baumgart’s willingness and ability to explore this paradox. China Lake gets at something alarming and true about nature and human nature.”—David Shields, author, Reality Hunger

2016 ������������Prize for Literary Nonfiction

2017 Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book selection