A tale of love, loss and lust in a fundamentalist North American community created in the aftermath of a giant flood that destroys most of the earth. David Arthurs, born after the flood, tries to save his Humanitarian city-state, Tolemac, from sinking into destruction as Capitalist forces of greed sweep in from neighbouring New Eden. How can he prevail, when David himself begins to succumb to … temptations of the flesh that were outlawed after the flood but never eradicated from the human genetic code?
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It is the 2040s, decades after the catastrophic 2012 flooding caused by global warming. The governance and topography of the entire world has changed. North America has been reduced to fragments of its landmass with only a tiny fraction of its previous population.
Ideal circumstances in which to create perfect countries with perfect nations? To form polities with ideologies that accurately represent the desires of their citizens? Indeed, many of the new North American “countries” peopled by like-minded survivors appear to have done so. The security and protection of each is guaranteed for those who subscribe.
Tolemac, the tiny remnant of North Eastern America, where the post-flood narrative takes place, is based on the humanitarian principle: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Capitalists have created parallel states that embrace the “Winner takes all” ideology.
Tolemac (a play on Camelot that conjures up an idyllic Arthurian land) is a tiny country founded by Samson Arthurs (another scent of the Arthurian idyll?). Samson Arthurs and his Executive Committee preserve the equity and happiness of all of Tolemac’s inhabitants and all policies and procedures that contributes to the good, the just, and the stable. Racism has been wiped out and moral righteousness reigns.
For those who delight in literary allusions, this is a treasure trove. You’ll find not only the Arthurian legend and the Old and New Testaments, but also Karl Marx and his nemesis Hayek, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Shane Joseph searches for an understanding of our contemporary political predicament as Alexis de Tocqueville sought to understand the meaning of democracy in America.
Neighboring New Eden founded on capitalist ideologies compete with the principles of Tolemac and maintain an open-door policy, welcoming those with ambition and innovative ideas.
Because no single country can supply all of its own nutritional and technical needs, trade between the capitalist and the humanitarian states occurs – welcomed by the Capitalists, regarded warily by the Humanitarians.
Against these polarizations that bear such contemporary significance in our all-too-real world, Shane Joseph tells a captivating and exciting story of heroism, survival, love and betrayal. He uses Tolemac and its leading citizens to explore the essentially human elements that underpin our political and moral principles on both the right and the left, the moral and the immoral, the self-centred and the caring.
Intrigues throw light on what daily practice demands to establish and maintain a society founded on principles that strive to deliver the best of lives for all.
In their tangled lives of love, jealousy, ambition and the difficulties inherent in maintaining virtue, Shane Joseph’s candidly human characters show what “the good life for all” can -=- and cannot – mean. Samson, Agnes and Delia, David and Sonya, Sean and Ethan – fiercely attracted to or repelled by one another – vividly show personal, ideological and economic forces at play in brutally honest relationships between husband, wife and lover, hero and beloved, saint and sinner.
Shane Joseph explores the essential, questions of our time – good and evil, avarice and benevolence, trust and uncertainty, sexual desire and virtue, and much, much more — through the lives of seemingly ordinary people who like us are also extraordinary.
Will Tolemac, its civic ideals and its well-meaning idealists survive? As with Camelot many factors threaten to topple it: discord among its leaders, open feuding, jealousy, sexual attraction that might lead to an adulterous affair, even murder. Can principled men and women overcome or are all Utopias bound to self-destruct?
Shane Joseph’s After the Flood: A Dystopian Novel of Hope answers these questions in the mast dramatic of ways.