n the surface, the story involving Gabriel "Bib" Riley is a simple one. The year 2034 finds Earth muddling along under twin oppressions: The sweltering climate has caused massive flooding and loss of life and other disruptions; and aliens who call themselves the "People," but who are dubbed "Bettys" by humans, have come to visit and impose a secret "Program" on mankind. Riley is a security guard assigned to patrol a semi-permanent tent city on the lawn of the White House. But while on duty he allegedly kills a refugee and flees to a drowned New York City. Pursued by several factions of humans and Bettys alike, Riley discovers that he is unique among his fellow in his ability to influence the course of the species. If he can survive.
Author Irvine recomplicates this tale in an ingenious, nonlinear fashion, however. This short novel is divided into four sections, two narrated in the first person, two narrated omnisciently. The result is a jigsaw tale that becomes much more than the sum of its parts.
The first section follows Riley's wife, Zena. After Riley's flight from the authorities, she is kidnapped by a federal agent named Fiske who is desperate to find Riley. But the longer the interrogation goes on, the more Zena comes to believe that Fiske is operating on his own skewed initiative. She escapes into Manhattan, is rescued by the widow of the man Riley allegedly shot and learns some of the complicated truths behind the Bettys and their program.
The second part of the tale adopts the point of view of one of the aliens, known only as the Counselor. His musings on his misgivings about the plans of the People reveal many of the secrets previously concealed. But when the Counselor accompanies the Administrator to a meeting with a religious cult led, of all people, by Riley's mother, events rapidly spiral out of his gentle control.
Truman Throckmorton is a religious hermit living along the banks of the out-of-control Mississippi. He's also the vector for a biological invasion by the Bettys. And when his path crosses Riley's, it's like matter meeting antimatter.
Finally we encounter Nate Drinkwater, a homeless NYC man, who gets swept up in Fiske's schemes, eventually befriending Riley and offering him crucial help in his mission.
Form follows satirical function
Aside from its retro title (is there anyone under the age of 50 who will recognize the allusion to an old radio/TV show?), Irvine's latest book is a snappy, gimlet-eyed, utterly postmodern jaunt through the shattered landscape of America. It deserves to be ranked with classic work in the same vein by Lucius Shepard, Bradley Denton, Scott Bradfield, George Saunders, Marc Laidlaw, Matt Ruff and Neal Barrett.
Irvine zeroes in on America's religiosity, commercialism, know-nothingism and other lovable quirks. Here we have a portrait of a country that cooperates gleefully in its own downfall. No heroic Independence Day resistance against the invaders here. Instead, the Bettys are incorporated into the internecine power struggles of various self-serving national factions. Correspondingly, the aliens get sucked into terrestrial insanity, converting to fundamental Catholicism in droves. (The section devoted to the Counselor is a fine portrait of an alien mentality striving to accommodate itself to the warped mentality of its Terran "Cousins.") There are no heroes here except possibly Riley, and even he seems more a pawn of forces beyond his control than otherwise. This role is symbolized by the fact that we see him onscreen only fleetingly, and never get inside his head.
Irvine's decision to fragment his story and tell it out of sequence is a perfect metaphor for the wacky, deracinated state of the nation. Why should the reader be privileged to understand things any more easily than the characters do? But rely on Irvine to ultimately make everything clear, and make the confusion enjoyable, accomplishing this through prose that's zesty and vivid: "In the water ... floated a bearded Rastafarian, smiling in the firelight, his salt-and-pepper dreadlocks spread out about him like the tentacles of a Holstein octopus." Nailed! And how can you not love a book whose dedication reads "for apocalyptic kooks everywhere" ... ?
