The Heap: A Novel

The Heap is a bad J.G. Ballard pastiche, with a few bare scintillas of charm.

The story is set in the ruins of Los Verticales, an experimental tower city somewhere in the high desert which collapsed. Now the rubble is picked over by diggers, scavenging valuable items from the rubble. Somewhere inside the wreckage is radio DJ Bernard, miraculously alive and giving focus to the digging effort, especially his brother Orville, who is nominally the main character.

The best bits of the story are the interludes titled "The Later Years", sociological remembrances of the vast apartment complex written in the second person plural: We used to..., exploring a divided society of outers who had a window and inners who didn't, oppressive social show more conformity, covert sex in garages, and the meaningless forms of democratic participation under capitalism.

These are not gems, they barely rise to broken glass, but they're at least shiny. The mass of the story is an undifferentiated 'dumb conspiracy'. When Orville refuses to include commercial endorsements in his daily calls with Bernard, he is replaced by a vocal impersonator. It turns out that there is a whole covert guild of vocal impersonators willing to murder to maintain power, and managerially ambitious digger Lydia helps Orville free himself from the grips of the conspiracy, where they find out that Bernard is also a vocal impersonator, and the real brother is long dead. But the Heap and the Dig provides some focus in a world.

I care deeply about J.G. Ballard. He even has an adjective, Ballardian, defined as resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard's novels and stories, esp dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes, and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments. Thinking about it, the thing about true Ballardian scifi is its absolute sincerity and commitment. The characters are clearly obsessive madmen, driven to the point of destruction, but their obsessions are treated as irresistible urges linked to eternal universal truths, the escaping of thanatic and erotic energy in a post-industrial post-modern space-age atomic complex. Ballard's subject is alienation, and his alienation is richly textured.

By comparison, Adams is nothing but sidelong winks at absurdity. Look at how stupid American managerialism is. Look at the pointlessness of office life, of the tiny rituals we call community, at the cleverness of the decently distanced allusions to 9/11 and Ground Zero. Aren't I clever as an author? And with all these cleverness, he cores out the strength of the Ballardian project.

I understood entirely when I got to the end and saw in the author's biography that he attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop, which I can only conclude is an entire dojo of authors trained how to write a story wrong on purpose, likely as part of some all encompassing Author's Conspiracy.

At least the book is short. show less

In the wake of the collapse of a huge condominium in the desert, a massive dig operation is begun to remove the debris, to salvage what can be recovered, and just possibly to find a survivor buried deep in the wreckage, beaming out a live radio program to the world.

This is the basic setup for Adams' novel, and the reader may be forgiven a certain sense of cynicism on approaching it. Consider it a parable, then. Or an extended metaphor for the manipulated, shaky, manufactured structure that is our world, if you wish.

Adams creates a wide cast of characters here, not all of whom are what they seem, but all of whom are recognizable in one way or another as hustlers, sycophants, romantics, goldbricks, political wannabes, and fugitives in one show more way or another from lives as crushed and warped as the debris they dig through every day.

Perceptive readers will see the holes in the story long before the characters do, but will hang on for the ride as these diggers ... ah, forgive me; I can't resist ... get to the bottom of it all. show less

Orville is working as a volunteer digging in the rubble of a collapsed apartment building that once housed as many people as a decent-sized city. He's looking for his brother, Bernard, who, improbably, appears to have survived and to be broadcasting from a radio station somewhere deep in the ruins. And then Orville turns down an offer for a side job and finds himself falling afoul of... a secret society of murderous voice actors?

It's a strange, somewhat surreal story, but an enjoyable one. Also a humorous one, although not so much laugh-out-loud funny as entertainingly absurd, in a constant, low-key sort of way. And, interestingly enough, the little glimpses into what life was like in the city-sized apartment building were actually show more pretty clever and intriguing. show less

I was intrigued when I heard about this one! A first novel featuring a kooky scenario: a huge community in a giant skyscraper called Los Verticalés -- five hundred stories tall in the middle of a desert. It takes neighbors a twenty minute walk to visit other oddly placed neighbors. The outer residents are higher class than the inner residents (it's the windows). Then one dayLos Verticalés collapses and everyone seems gone - floor crushing floor, until Orville hears his brother over the radio, the DJ of Los Verticalés buried in the rubble. The concept is dark but Sean Adams does awesome work of building this strange and unique structure before the collapse. The 'before' is explained by the Displaced Travelers who happened to be away show more from The Vert when it collapsed and now live nostalgically in CamperTown, waiting to see what is dug up. But I wanted MORE of life before the collapse. Without the explanation of life before, the book would be worse off for it. I wasn't as attached to the Dig Hands for whatever reason, maybe because the 'before' chapters are so wonderfully layered and imaginative. The 'after' really ran with some kooky conspiracies. The characters of the 'after' mostly reminded me of 'Preacher' --the characters of Herr Starr, Lara Featherstone and F.J. Hoover. ALSO reminding me of whatever the heck was happening with Robert De Niro's character in Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil'. The 'before' mostly reminded me of the extreme inventiveness of Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities'. You could almost read the 'before' chapters on their own, just to revisit the building and learn about the unique circumstances before the Heap. I did wonder why more of the book wasn't written while the tower was still standing but seeing life real-time in The Vert may have been too much, too devastating when it finally collapses, which might be why Mr. Adams chose to view this amazing building in hindsight. I will be intrigued by what comes next from Mr. Adams.

**I received this book as part of Librarything's Early Reviewers. show less

In the fallen rubble of a charismatic billionaire's hubristic high-rise city, diggers search for a survivor broadcasting from below, as former residents struggle to stay connected with the place that supplied their identity, and shadowy forces work to take advantage of the tragedy.

I enjoyed the character development, quick pace, and interesting setting in this book. Its embrace of the absurd doesn't keep it from introspection on community, meaning, and relationships. The recollections of life in the city in particular were entertaining. Thinking about it afterwards, the introduction of an even wilder conspiracy than one involving the lone founder of the city is curious and a little distracting, but created a lot of energy, and show more certainly leads to consideration of which conspiracy might be the more deadly. It was a quick read that somehow didn't leave me without hope for humanity. show less

The Ant Hill

Sean Adams has written a novel that is at once satire and absurdism. It’s also anthropological in that Los Verticalés, a 500-story apartment building in a desert removed from everything, and its heap of ruins after its sudden collapse, both might be viewed as you would the classic educational toy, the Ant Farm, though in this case you observe humans adapt and function in two different but oddly similar environments, the high tower and the underground heap. In the tower, we watch as residents sort themselves out based on economics and different methods of establishing identity. On and in the heap, we see more egalitarianism, in that everybody pretty much lives in like quarters and works with a single purpose, but not show more without the usual clawing for status, at least among some. Everybody, tower residents and diggers, shares certain characteristics of modern life, in particular delusion and neuroticism. Overarching the whole thing is that everybody has been been manipulated by a creator of sorts, far off and normally unreachable, but who descends on the dig to reveal himself as inscrutable to ordinary people. Adams tosses in some plotting revolving around a bunch of impersonators, known as the Vocalist Cartel, to move things along, but the focus here is on how absurdly people can behave in a basically absurd world driven by neurotic impulses they can’t seem to control, let alone fathom. You might call it a novel written for times like these, when mass insanity seems to be the new normal, and you might be right.

The story itself is simple. Peter Thisbee erected a tower in the desert and people flocked to fill it. Then it suddenly, for reasons unexplained and unknown, collapsed. Those away at the time tell about life in the tower in extracts from their book in progress, “From the Later Years.” These excerpts appear interspersed throughout the novel. After the collapse, Thisbee called for volunteers to dig out bodies and possible survivors, notably Bernard Anders, and again people answered his call. They live in a community named CamperTown and gain as compensation a purpose in their lives.

Bernard was a popular radio commentator in the tower. He also appears to be alive and continuing to transmit from deep in the bowels of debris. People listen in worldwide to hear what he says of his predicament and to hear him talk to his brother Orville, who calls in daily, after he has finished his stint digging on and in the heap. This becomes so popular that a media company approaches Orville about monetizing his conversations by slipping in ads for various products. When Orville rejects the offer, the media company removes all means for him to communicate with Bernard and substitutes an impersonator from the Vocal Cartel to fill in for him (though all is not as it seems in this regard and comes to speak to self-identity issues). Orville, at the site because of his brother, whom he hasn’t had much to do with for years, and trying to work through his feelings about his brother and family, goes on a quest to discover who is behind the ersatz Bernard, bringing him into conflict with the Vocal Cartel, while also unearthing secrets kept from the diggers. His quest not only adds purpose to his life, but also to those on the dig closest to him, the other main characters, highly neurotic Lydia, easy-going Hans, and acceptance-seeking Terrance.

Adams does a good job of creating two worlds, that of the life the tower and life in CamperTown, including each’s social organization. This serves to magnify ills in our own society in a way that makes them seem absurd and silly, causing you to wonder why we can’t see the dystopian nature of our situation. All very interesting stuff but only for the right readers. Too, while the novel reads well due to Adams’ skillful writing, true appreciation comes in finishing and the afterglow of putting it all together in your own mind so speaks to you in a sensible way. show less

The Ant Hill

Sean Adams has written a novel that is at once satire and absurdism. It’s also anthropological in that Los Verticalés, a 500-story apartment building in a desert removed from everything, and its heap of ruins after its sudden collapse, both might be viewed as you would the classic educational toy, the Ant Farm, though in this case you observe humans adapt and function in two different but oddly similar environments, the high tower and the underground heap. In the tower, we watch as residents sort themselves out based on economics and different methods of establishing identity. On and in the heap, we see more egalitarianism, in that everybody pretty much lives in like quarters and works with a single purpose, but not show more without the usual clawing for status, at least among some. Everybody, tower residents and diggers, shares certain characteristics of modern life, in particular delusion and neuroticism. Overarching the whole thing is that everybody has been been manipulated by a creator of sorts, far off and normally unreachable, but who descends on the dig to reveal himself as inscrutable to ordinary people. Adams tosses in some plotting revolving around a bunch of impersonators, known as the Vocalist Cartel, to move things along, but the focus here is on how absurdly people can behave in a basically absurd world driven by neurotic impulses they can’t seem to control, let alone fathom. You might call it a novel written for times like these, when mass insanity seems to be the new normal, and you might be right.

The story itself is simple. Peter Thisbee erected a tower in the desert and people flocked to fill it. Then it suddenly, for reasons unexplained and unknown, collapsed. Those away at the time tell about life in the tower in extracts from their book in progress, “From the Later Years.” These excerpts appear interspersed throughout the novel. After the collapse, Thisbee called for volunteers to dig out bodies and possible survivors, notably Bernard Anders, and again people answered his call. They live in a community named CamperTown and gain as compensation a purpose in their lives.

Bernard was a popular radio commentator in the tower. He also appears to be alive and continuing to transmit from deep in the bowels of debris. People listen in worldwide to hear what he says of his predicament and to hear him talk to his brother Orville, who calls in daily, after he has finished his stint digging on and in the heap. This becomes so popular that a media company approaches Orville about monetizing his conversations by slipping in ads for various products. When Orville rejects the offer, the media company removes all means for him to communicate with Bernard and substitutes an impersonator from the Vocal Cartel to fill in for him (though all is not as it seems in this regard and comes to speak to self-identity issues). Orville, at the site because of his brother, whom he hasn’t had much to do with for years, and trying to work through his feelings about his brother and family, goes on a quest to discover who is behind the ersatz Bernard, bringing him into conflict with the Vocal Cartel, while also unearthing secrets kept from the diggers. His quest not only adds purpose to his life, but also to those on the dig closest to him, the other main characters, highly neurotic Lydia, easy-going Hans, and acceptance-seeking Terrance.

Adams does a good job of creating two worlds, that of the life the tower and life in CamperTown, including each’s social organization. This serves to magnify ills in our own society in a way that makes them seem absurd and silly, causing you to wonder why we can’t see the dystopian nature of our situation. All very interesting stuff but only for the right readers. Too, while the novel reads well due to Adams’ skillful writing, true appreciation comes in finishing and the afterglow of putting it all together in your own mind so speaks to you in a sensible way. show less