his is one of these books where I wish I was in some college class reading it, so I could understand the meaning better. There is a hint of what I think this is really about. But I’m not sure.
So, in The Arrest, main character Sandy Duplessis (see, what’s with that name? It’s almost “duplicitous”, right?) has limped home to his sister’s organic farm in Maine after the world fell apart. The Arrest, from the title, is not an act of civil custody as it is the complete break down of every machine in the world. Now, with the entire Earth a grimmer and more basic place, Sandy (or Journeyman, as he is otherwise know) has returned home to his only living family (let’s not think of what happen to his elderly parents when the entire thing shut down). He’s just trying to find a place for himself in this new world. And his place, being a failed writer in the former world, is to deliver stuff door to door by bike in their commune.
And everything is settling into a this new normal when Peter Todbaum shows up. Peter was Sandy’s co-producer on a number of failed projects over in LA, a pitchman and producer, trying to get their life’s work, Yet Another World (interestingly, a movie or mini-series about another failed and crumbling reality) into print/video/theaters. But what’s really weird is that Peter shows up in an atomic car, a tank of a thing he’s used to supposedly fight his way across the former US, to make it to Sandy (and more eagerly, Sandy’s sister, whom he had some sort of relationship with). So Peter sits before his gleaming car at the campfire every night, spooling off stories of his adventures (kinda like his old pitchman days) while Sandy worries about how this might affect his place here in the community.
And outside, on Peter’s backtrack, angry forces are slowly following him.
I’ll say it was a good book, current enough to be in your local library (that’s where I got mine). I’ll admit that it made me interested enough in the entire post-collapse world that I’m considering writing another game about it. So it was an interesting read, one you should check out (literally). And the ending? Weird, yet satisfying.