The Heap: A Novel

Written by Sean Adams

Narrated by David Sadzin, Allyson Ryan, Sarah Naughton and Todd Haberkorn

“As intellectually playful as the best of Thomas Pynchon and as sardonically warm as the best of Kurt Vonnegut, The Heap is both a hilarious send-up of life under late capitalism and a moving exploration of the peculiar loneliness of the early 21st century. A masterful and humane gem of a novel.” —Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters

Blending the piercing humor of Alexandra Kleeman and the jagged satire of Black Mirror, an audacious, eerily prescient debut novel that chronicles the rise and fall of a massive high-rise housing complex, and the lives it affected before - and after - its demise.

Standing nearly five hundred stories tall, Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap. In exchange for digging gear, a rehabilitated bicycle, and a small living stipend, a vast community of Dig Hands removes debris, trash, and bodies from the building’s mountainous remains, which span twenty acres of unincorporated desert land.

Orville Anders burrows into the bowels of the Heap to find his brother Bernard, the beloved radio DJ of Los Verticalés, who is alive and miraculously broadcasting somewhere under the massive rubble. For months, Orville has lived in a sea of campers that surrounds the Heap, working tirelessly to free Bernard—the only known survivor of the imploded city—whom he speaks to every evening, calling into his radio show.

The brothers’ conversations are a ratings bonanza, and the station’s parent company, Sundial Media, wants to boost its profits by having Orville slyly drop brand names into his nightly talks with Bernard. When Orville refuses, his access to Bernard is suddenly cut off, but strangely, he continues to hear his own voice over the airwaves, casually shilling products as “he” converses with Bernard.

What follows is an imaginative and darkly hilarious story of conspiracy, revenge, and the strange life and death of Los Verticalés that both captures the wonderful weirdness of community and the bonds that tie us together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Jan 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062988997

Sean Adams

Sean Adams is the author of The Heap. He is a graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Normal School, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife, Emma, and their various pets.

Reviews for The Heap

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a good 50-100 pages to get into this book, and then I didn't want to put it down. It's a post-apocalyptic novel, but of a different kind.Los Verticalés was a condo complex in the desert (presumably in the US, but it isn't really clear). This wasn't your usual complex though. It was a 500+ story building, with inner (windowless) and outer (windowed) units and the class divisions associated with them, parks, any kind of business you can imagine, schools, an underground parking garage. To combat the crowded hallways, the tower had multiple time zones. The world and culture building Adams creates within this tower is fascinating (and sometimes funny).And then the tower collapsed.This novel takes place post-collapse. Camper Town is where the diggers live--they are digging in the heap, looking for survivors and items that can be sold to finance the search. One of the diggers is Orville, whose brother Bernard is still broadcasting from a Los Verticalés radio station. Orville calls in to the show daily, and the brothers have become national stars. The Displaced Travelers community is adjacent to Camper Town--these are residents of the tower who happened to be away at the time of the collapse. They are in mourning and just can't make themselves leave.But is it all really this simple? Of course not. Sundial Media--the parent company of the radio station--has hired the Voice Cartel to assist. Peter Thisbee, the founder of the tower also is in on the recovery--is this just another venture to him? What is really going on, and who is behind it all?There are a few not-quite-explained plot points (what's with the casino? How did Terrance become such a key figure?), but this book is a fun ride.

[jnmegan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Heap by Sean Adams is recalls the type of winking political and societal satire presented in works by Vonnegut and Pyncheon, or in the film “Brazil” by Terry Gilliam. Adam’s novel wittily reflects the mindlessness and vapidity of our modern age within an alternative universe controlled by a corrupt bureaucracy that takes advantage of people’s worst tendencies. The story is simple but unusual- Orville is a man searching for his brother among the ruins of a collapsed building. “Los Verticalés” was originally designed as a type of utopian community, an enormous ever-expanding tower meant to provide everything people would need for existence within one self-contained structure. The Heap takes place after the building’s inevitable collapse, becoming a tale of the stalled rescue of the lone survivor of the tragedy, Bernard. Orville’s brother is still within the rubble, broadcasting continuously from his radio station and taking calls from the outside. The building’s original architects have enlisted people to conduct the search as they also unearth and sell off salvageable items. A whole community has sprung up around the effort, including: the diggers and an administrative support system; small businesses to provide amenities; and a band of people who once lived in the tower, having escaped the tragedy by not being home when the collapse occurred. These are the “displaced,” who write about what life was like in Los Verticalés, providing the reader some vital background information about the social experiment. Most of The Heap consists of Adams describing how the evolved community has established its own routines and fallen into a state of passive ennui over time. Lydia, one of Orville’s dig partners, is the only character who possesses political ambitions and is therefore consistently frustrated by the reluctance of others to change or put forth extra effort. Other secondary characters become allegories for human adaptation to loss and the drive toward comfort even if freedom must be sacrificed. It takes a bit too long, but eventually events occur that shake up the plodding existence of the Heap and its inhabitants- challenging them to stand up to the menacing corporate cabal that wants them to continue succumbing to their stupor. Orville, with his uniquely emotional connection to the place, is responsible for rebelling against the underlying power structure. His reluctant awareness and subsequent actions result in some unexpected and humorous ripple effects. Strange and sometimes slow-paced, The Heap is an interesting experiment in storytelling. Though probably not universally appealing, readers who are searching for something unique, smile-provoking and subtly pointed would do well to give this new novel a try.Thanks to the author, William Morrow and Library Thing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

[booklove2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Orville, Hans, and Lydia are working at The Heap, the site where a huge living complex collapsed. The tower was its own community, serving up round-the-clock entertainment, employment, and home. It's residents rarely, if ever went or even saw the out-of-doors. They are motivated by the fact that Orville's brother, Bernard is still buried in the wreckage broadcasting his radio show. Orville regularly calls in to talk with his brother until one day, the phone bank is shut down by the voice actor's guild who operate more like the Mafia. Meanwhile, with all that digging going on, are they getting any closer to rescuing Bernard?

[smcgurr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel about a group of people digging through the rubble of a huge condominium (The Vert) built in the desert that has collapsed. The main character is searching for his brother, a resident who ran a radio station in the Vert and who is still broadcasting from the rubble after the collapse. A humorous satire about communities, both of those who lived in the Vert and those working on the Heap who live in a hastily put together Campertown, families, and work. I enjoyed the book, especially when the book took a Pyncheonesque turn with the introduction of a strange secret society that might have something to do with the missing DJ.Interspersed with the main narrative are interstitial chapters about life in the Vert written by the residents who were outside of the building when it collapsed. These read like excerpts from J.G. Ballard's High-Rise with a look at how daily life differed based on your location in the condo.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 pretty clever and intriguing.

[hairball_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Heap has so many of the elements I enjoy in books--amusing characters, an interesting premise, social commentary, dry humor--yet they ingredients, so to speak, don't manage to make a completely satisfying stew, but I can't pinpoint a reason for it. I wanted to feel delighted, but I didn't, and I kept asking myself why I wasn't. I moderately recommend this book.

[felliot-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.To be honest, I’m not sure how to review this book. It is a satire, a farce, and ‘dark comedy’ about what it means to be part of a community as well as an individual. While all that sounds like it should be interesting, there was almost nothing about this book I could get interested in. The whole thing felt so controlled and impersonal that I could like neither the characters nor the plot. Here’s a small example: almost every chapter is either 5 or 6 pages long. Why?If you like odd dystopian novels you might like this.

[drneutron_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When the largest building ever built (really, a small city unto itself) collapses into a mountain of debris, a dystopian society forms of diggers and support people out to find the dead and recycle the materials and objects from the building. One particular digger is looking for his brother who, strangely, is still broadcasting his radio show from somewhere deep in the wreckage, in spite of effort by the corporate powers to control him - and revenge ensues.An interesting concept, Adams' book falls flat for me. I didn't find it "darkly funny" and didn't connect with any of the characters. It's clear this is supposed to be an Important Book that says a lot about discrimination, wealth disparity, corporate influence, all those type of things, but in the end a book has to be interesting to be able to communicate, and this one wasn't.

[lesindy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting sci-fi dystopian novel. A huge city built in floors is created by a genius. Unfortunately, the city collapses. People make their living cleaning "the Heap." Orville talks to his brother on the radio and is quite the hit around the world. But reality is shocking and cruel.This book is weird fiction, in a way. You have to have an open mind. This is out in the desert and there apparently is no wifi or cell service. An entertaining read.

[jillrhudy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"The Heap" uses dark humor, ironic narrative distance, and intensifying action to give the reader a eerie and delicious sense of dystopian déjà vu. Despite weak characterization of the primary characters, I recommend it to fans of the genre."The Heap" is about a massive community under tyrannical and evil corporate governance, with a billionaire in a hoodie manipulating the flow of information and exploiting the people in preposterous ways for profit. Economic stratification is blatant and extreme. The quirk: the community is actually a 500-story apartment complex in the desert called Los Verticalés, or The Vert, so that the economic stratification is vertical. The poor residents are on the inside with screens that mimic windows, and the rich residents are on the outside, with real windows.Los Verticalés has collapsed, killing thousands of residents, rich and poor alike. Now it's called The Heap. The sense of place, of unending monotonous labor, is as stark and bleak as that of "Holes" or "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."Orville, Lydia, Hans, and Terrance have been recruited to the Dig along with hundreds of others, in a massive salvage operation, so that the billionaire developer of the Vert, Peter Thisbee, may continue to profit from the tragedy. Lydia has political ambitions within Campertown, where the diggers live. Hans likes to dig and be manly. Terrance is the newbie underdog. Orville has a special mission: to unearth his brother Bernard, a radio DJ who has mysteriously continued to broadcast from within the Heap. When Orville runs afoul of a vicious cartel of voice actors, a thrill-ride quest for the truth commences. The story alternates between the written reports of the surviving residents who were luckily absent when the Vert collapsed, who are called the Displaced Travelers, and the adventures of the Diggers. The reports of the Displaced Travelers document the preposterous abuses of the Vert toward the less privileged residents. They write about their experiences with a mixture of nostalgia and distress, but mainly they seem proud of their odd coping mechanisms. The "Vert" residents had become tribal. Many had embraced the markers of their low status and engaged in weird and hilarious entertainments. As for the Parking Garage. . .I have no words.The various corrupt and all-powerful enterprises of Thisbee are like the Buy-N-Large of the Pixar movie WALL-E. The characters all take Thisbee's dominance for granted, and blithely accept as a given both the horrific tragedy of the Heap, and their places as cogs in the Thisbee's money-making machine, in the novel's ultimate irony.I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and was encouraged to submit a review.