Synopsis: The Dirt People - Ray Bawarchi

Dystopian satire set in a future where environmental degradation forces the remnants of humanity into giant domed cities called BioSpheres. The Dirt People examines the effects of technological dependence and materialism on a distracted populace. Despite the planetary tragedy, continuing advances in technology allows the survivors of the calamity to live at the pinnacle of comfort and conspicuous consumption. However, nation-states have collapsed and been supplanted by the CORPORATE SPONSORS, who built the BioSpheres. Individuals are considered the “Human Resources” of the corporation to which they belong. The Corporate Sponsors have made everything, including information, a commodity. Society is now ordered along monetary lines. Living assignment, status and even rights are based on wealth. The population is kept docile by an endless stream of entertainment and consumer products. All civic organizations, political parties, religions, or any other groups that could cause trouble are taxed out of existence. THE CHURCH OF JOHN COLTRANE is the exception and survives as what is viewed more as an expensive joke than an actual religion. Recent difficulties with the filtration units are expected to be solved by technological advances in the very near future. Terrorists have recently attempted to blow up the BioSphere. Seen as a threat to society they are harshly punished.

Mistakenly associated with the radicals, JOHN GREEN (POV) is abruptly expelled from the BioSphere after he begins to investigate the accumulation of toxins following the death of his wife MATTIE. Expulsion is seen as a death sentence since it is believed that the world outside the domes is too hostile for humans to survive. But John does survive. He finds that there are extensive areas outside the BioSpheres where nature has recovered. He experiences the beauty and enormity of the natural world as he begins to wander in and wonder at the world he has never seen. Driven by an irrational compulsion to find the home of his great-great-grandfather, he begins to walk, using only avoidance of the BioSpheres and the sun to guide him.

John then meets ED CACTUS. Having thought himself to be the only person “outside”, John is astonished to find that not only is there another person outside, but that there is an entire community of people living outside. Ed and his wife, HONEY CACTUS, the leader of the DIRT PEOPLE, take John in to live with them. At first, John thinks they are primitives who were left behind but somehow managed to survive. Only gradually does John begin to realize that the Dirt People don’t view themselves as “left behind”, instead seeing themselves as having escaped and those inside as slaves.

At some point, John is sent to live with GRANDPA IKE, a 100-year-old man who represents wisdom. Through Grandpa Ike and the lives of the Dirt People, the influence of technology on the nature of humanity is examined. John is taught a philosophy of living in harmony with the natural world that borrows heavily on a blend of Native American and deep ecology beliefs. John then begins to see the shallow nature of life within the bubble cities.

Meanwhile, those living in the BioSpheres begin to experience health problems. The masses become restless and begin to question the Corporate Sponsors. The Chairman of the Board of Sponsor Corporations, who is effectively the leader of the world, HAROLD (call me Hal) E. BURTON, brings out Corporate Security to quell brewing discontent. A resistance movement emerges and the Church of John Coltrane is revealed to be the front for the movement.

John discovers that the Dirt People have been waging a campaign of sabotage against the Corporate Sponsors for years. Further, they plan to attack the BioSpheres, or “Bios-Fears’” as they call them, by blowing up the walls and “freeing” those inside. Although he is angry at the Corporate Sponsors and blames them for the death of his wife, John is horrified at the thought of violence and attempts to change their minds. Only it is his mind that changes. Presented with incontrovertible evidence that the environmental crisis was no unexpected accident, as taught in the Corporate Minutes of History, John begins to see that his whole life has been a lie. He knows only what the Corporate Sponsors have told him. It is revealed that deliberate inaction and political manipulation by the very multi-national corporations that later became the Corporate Sponsors accelerated the crisis. He discovers that his own great-great-grandfather had been a wanted man by the Corporate Sponsors and that he had been hunted because he refused to go inside. John is forced to confront the idea that he has been a slave, even if an unwitting one.

John finally accepts the fact that he has been a slave and that the comfort of his life and that of all the others in the BioSpheres is at the expense of the outside world and those who live in it. As a consequence of the throw-away, consumer driven society in the bubbles, those outside are being poisoned, suffering health problems and birth defects from the pollution and toxic runoff necessary to maintain the technology of the BioSpheres. The Dirt People are not merely attacking the Corporate Sponsors out of anger; they are doing it out of desperation. Eventually John comes to terms with the reality that there seems to be no other choice. His concerns about violence raise questions about his resolve and set the stage for the final tension.

The worlds inside and outside the bubbles collide in the final scene as the Dirt People attack from the outside at the same time as Corporate Security attempts to arrest the members of the Church of John Coltrane. The final tension involves whether he will follow through and initiate the charge that begins the assault. As he reaches final resolution it is revealed to the reader that he has attained the same mindset as the “terrorist” he could not understand in the beginning of the novel. The novel ends as he detonates the first explosion in the attack on the Bios-Fears.

An exploration of the effects of technology upon our lives, The Dirt People also examines the barriers that impede our ability to address the environmental crisis. The central psychological element of change slowly occurs as John is presented with the truth that has led to his enslaved existence. During the course of the novel, John transitions from comfortable member of the status quo to reluctant revolutionary. The reader is challenged to consider the impact and effects of their own existence.