The Heap: A Novel

by Sean Adams

Blending the dark humor of Patrick deWitt and the jagged social and techno-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.

• ISBN10: 0062957732
• ISBN13: 9780062957733
• Publish Date: 2 April 2020 (first published 7 January 2020)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 17 May 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: William Morrow
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .

3.5*

So, this book went in a very different direction that I assumed it would. To be fair, I don't necessarily always have any decent grasp on where I think things are headed, so we won't hold that against The Heap. But I feel like it's worth mentioning, anyway. I guess I assumed, based on the technical prowess of Los Verticalés, that we were going to be in some kind of future setting (and we can blame Goodreads for labeling it as both "science fiction" and "dystopian"). And I don't actually know if it isn't, which we'll get to. But anyway, let us chat about all the things!

What I Liked: 

• • The history of Los Verticalés was kind of awesome. There were chapters, written by those who had survived Los Verticalés (by not being home at the time basically), about the history of the building. Not just the physical details, but of how the people of the building pretty much formed their own society over time. It was endlessly fascinating, and I couldn't get enough!



• • The characters went through a lot of quiet development. There was a lot of introspection in the book, which is why I say "inward". They each were very... reserved about sharing emotions with anyone else, so the evolution they went through was a slower one of solitary exposition. Still, that made it feel incredibly honest, and authentic to the characters the author had developed. They would not have been the type to have evolved any other way.



• • There's some mystery elements at play, and some very left-field stuff that I did not see coming! I'll keep it vague, but I will say that I definitely didn't see where things were headed, like I said. It takes an incredibly different turn from "looking for survivors in rubble of bananas building" to... well, that's a thing you'll have to find out for yourself!

What I Didn't:

• • When is this happening!? Honestly guys your guess is as good as mine. There's a ton of talk about a radio (as the main character's brother is a radio host), and phone lines. But no one seems to have cell phones or the internet. So... could be dystopia! But could also be alternate universe altogether, really. Also, what's shakin' with the rest of the world? No idea either! That is really my biggest gripe here: Worldbuilding was non-existent outside of Los Verticalés. And that could have been the point, which is fine, except the characters do go beyond the rubble. So it became more confusing for me to not understand the outside world at all.

Bottom Line: It's definitely a unique book with plot points I never expected. It moves at a slower pace and is definitely character driven, so expect less on Los Verticalés itself, and more on the rescuers and such.