Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. It's not hard for me to get

Dooms 8 preppers. Like, I imagine there's something seductively comforting to knowing you've got a

bajillion gallons of bottled water and a month's worth of food and a stockpile of weapons

all locked away somewhere in case the world goes bad.

Of course, the practicalities of that lifestyle work a little differently if you're black.

Kashana Kali's debut novel, The Survivalists, explores that premise.

Her protagonist is this successful woman in the city who finds herself embedded in a survivalist community.

And Kali talks to NPR's Juana Summers about how the major pull of this lifestyle

is just the basic need we all have for control over our lives.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show,

Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

What could set an accomplished comedy writer and former lawyer down a path to writing about preparing for an apocalypse?

For Kashana Kali, it might have started with how she grew up in Wisconsin.

For a while, my parents' favorite movie was conspiracy theory with Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.

It wasn't that they necessarily took all of it seriously, but they had big fears.

Collie has channeled some of those fears into her debut novel. It's called The Survivalists.

The main character is a millennial attorney named Doretha. When we meet her,

she's overworked and underwhelmed by most of the men she's meeting on dating apps.

She's like a house, 2.5 kids, you know, pick a fence kind of person. But she lives in New York

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