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    The Arrest: A Novel
    The Arrest: A Novel
    The Arrest: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Arrest: A Novel

    Written by Jonathan Lethem

    Narrated by Robert Fass

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the award-winning author of The Feral Detective and Motherless Brooklyn comes an utterly original post-collapse yarn about two siblings, the man that came between them, and a nuclear-powered super car.

    The Arrest isn’t post-apocalypse. It isn’t a dystopia. It isn’t a utopia. It’s just what happens when much of what we take for granted—cars, guns, computers, and airplanes, for starters—quits working. . . . 

    Before the Arrest, Sandy Duplessis had a reasonably good life as a screenwriter in L.A.  An old college friend and writing partner, the charismatic and malicious Peter Todbaum, had become one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. That didn’t hurt. 

    Now, post-Arrest, nothing is what it was. Sandy, who calls himself Journeyman, has landed in rural Maine. There he assists the butcher and delivers the food grown by his sister, Maddy, at her organic farm. But then Todbaum shows up in an extraordinary vehicle: a retrofitted tunnel-digger powered by a nuclear reactor. Todbaum has spent the Arrest smashing his way across a fragmented and phantasmagorical United States, trailing enmities all the way. Plopping back into the siblings’ life with his usual odious panache, his motives are entirely unclear.  Can it be that Todbaum wants to produce one more extravaganza? Whatever he’s up to, it may fall to Journeyman to stop him. 

    Written with unrepentant joy and shot through with just the right amount of contemporary dread, The Arrest is speculative fiction at its absolute finest.

    Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.


    Editor's Note

    No more screens…

    What happens when the screens and the machines stop working? That’s the case in Jonathan Lethem’s “The Arrest,” a quirky telling of life in America after the computers, planes, phones, and guns have all stopped working. Sandy Duplessis, now known as Journeyman, leaves his LA screenwriter life behind to join his sister in rural Maine, trading glamorous Hollywood caché for work as a butcher. When his old friend Peter Todbaum shows up unexpectedly in a retrofitted tunnel-digger powered by a nuclear reactor, their placid lives are turned upside down.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateNov 10, 2020
    ISBN9780062938985
    Author

    Jonathan Lethem

    Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Arrest, The Feral Detective, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.

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    Reviews for The Arrest

    3/5

    85 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Good beginning. But gets steadily more and more goofy, until--Who cares?
    • 3/5
      Weird and fun. More weird than fun though..
    • 4/5
      An interesting take on the apocalypse, and the story is more about a man who still who doesn't know who is and as a result, needs outside influences to give him a purpose. I enjoy reading it, and as a study in character, its great. But as a study in how humans survive after the world ends, it leaves you hanging. For example, the people on Tinderwick know very little about the world outside. They are kept ignorant by those folk who are refered to as the "Cordon" the militia that keeps Tinderwick safe or possibly hostage, in return for food, the population isn't sure what the relationship is.When Todbaum shows up in a nuclear powered car, he brings news of the outside, but it can't be believed, since he tells people what they want to here, a story over truth. The car brings unwanted attention, which causes conflict, in a community that runs by consensus.Mr. Lethem is an excellent writer. The world is explained just enough to get the point across. What happened between Todbaum and Maddy is never explained, but it left a deep hurt that carries the story. I suspect those looking for a more traditional apocolypse story will be dissapointed, but overall, its an excellent book, mostly for how it leaves the gaps unfilled while at the same time being a full book.
    • 2/5
      Started this book, tried to get through it but eventually gave up. Unusual use of time but...
    • 3/5
      Setting is intriguing but story doesn’t grab me. POV character is hesitant writer who’s hitched himself to a sleazy Hollywood producer.
    • 3/5
      Perhaps because I read The Arrest after reading Station Eleven, I found it a minor Lethem novel. One problem is to have the POV character be a passive sort; while other characters move the plot, he just moves around at the whim of others. Entertaining, but not up to the standard Lethem has been setting in most of his novels.
    • 4/5
      Jonathan Lethem is an author that I have read extensively. Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude are great novels. As the years have gone by his novels have become shorter and quirkier. The Arrest is in that vain. It is sci-fi and deals with a post-apocalyptical world. Having just read "Leave the World Behind", it was interesting to be into this similar genre. In this world all technology no longer works so the world has returned to a 19th century type of existence. There is no back story about how this came about but in this book that is not important. It takes place in a community in Maine that has evolved into a farming community where people do their jobs and there is communal support. There is also a group call the Cordons who are sort of the "police" who either guard the community or keep it captive in exchange for the food the community produces. We are introduced to the community through Sandy(who calls himself Journeyman). Sandy was visiting his sister Maddy on her farm when The Arrest happened. With no transportation people stayed in place. Journeyman and Maddy have a history with Peter Todbaum who was a Hollywood writer and producer that Sandy worked with. Todbaum shows up in Main with a huge vehicle that he says in nuclear powered and he is looking for Journeyman and Maddy. This is the setting for the story. The writing is great and the story moves slowly but says alot about society and how we deal with each other when sudden change occurs. This is especially timely with Covid 19. If you have never read Lethem this might be a good place to start because the book is not long. Otherwise I would suggest Motherless Brooklyn. Lethem is an important writer that should be read.
    • 3/5
      The Arrest, Jonathan Lethem, author; Robert Fass, narratorIn an unknown time, somewhere in America, society as we know it no longer exists. We are not told why, but all technology has failed, and there is a new era called The Arrest. There are no machines, no computers, planes, automobiles, telephones etc. There is one surviving machine however, called The Blue Streak. It is run with atomic power, and it is under the control of Peter Todbaum, a man whose mind has deserted him. He lives within the machine, largely in a lead lined space. One never learns how he sustains himself with the necessities of life, but he seems to have an unending supply of coffee which he brews inside his vehicle and distributes to visitors..Peter Todbaum, Alexander Duplessis (known also as Journeyman and Sandy), and Madeline Duplessis, Journeyman’s sister, go back a long way to the days when they were in school, before The Arrest.. Something happened between Maddie and Peter that left deep scars. Maddie’s brother Journeyman, was a writer. He had written one successful screenplay using her ideas. Peter Todbaum was his associate in the production. Todbaum was a loud, aggressive man known as a storyteller. He was a rule breaker who pushed the envelope. In his mentally disturbed state, decades later, he has blamed the catastrophe of The Arrest on the play. He travels in his atomic vehicle across the country searching for Journeyman. Journeyman is at a farm started by his sister Maddie after The Arrest.The farm is like a commune. Everyone works. Those that break the norms of their society are exiled but are treated compassionately, although they are prisoners, and they are fed. One of Journeyman’s jobs is to deliver their food. Even prisoners are required to do some form of work to contribute. However, in this society, there are also those known as cordons. They are a kind of “police” and they are feared. Currently, however, the community exists peacefully, with each person participating to make it function like a well oiled machine, ironically, since machines no longer exist. On the positive side, the environment is not being abused, until the Blue Streak and Todbaum arrive. The machine is radioactive and is melting down. It can destroy them all. Todbaum envisions taking the community with him when it explodes.The residents devise a way to remove the vehicle from the immediate vicinity using a series of winches they create. They push it atop a “mountain”, where in its glowing state, it is like a lighthouse. Todbaum refuses to leave it. He will not work or be a prisoner in the community. He remains on board and accuses them of wanting to murder him. Journeyman, in his job, is required to bring him food. Journeyman reads to him from notes written by another “prisoner” who had been exiled, Jerome Kormantz. He discards each page after it is read. When, done, perhaps he will read to him from the book he is writing about “The Arrest”. After all, he is still a writer. In a sense he has become the storyteller in place of Todbaum. Will he discard his written word, as well?Society has destroyed itself and small groups are rebuilding their lives, but they do not have any way to know about each other because there is no communication and transportation is very limited. With society in this infant stage, and with the constant reminder that deranged people still exist, as in the minds of Todbaum and Gorse and Kormentz, will it survive and prosper, or will it bring about another disaster as greed and the need for power grows. One would hope that they will coexist peacefully, each contributing to the society as they are able and each helping to create a more promising future.I have to admit that I did not fully understand the book. It was a hard read as it jumped from scene to scene erratically, by the author’s design. Because the disorganization is intentional, it doesn’t make it easier to comprehend. It is so creative, that although it was so confusing, I could not stop reading it. In the end, though, perhaps my interpretation of it will be rational, and perhaps I did understand more than I thought. The book made me think about society, its purpose, its abuse, and its ultimate end. Are we on a course to disaster? The book absolutely required me to suspend disbelief as I read and to hope that such an end, as it describes, can be avoided as cooler minds alter the trajectory of society toward disaster.
    • 2/5
      The Arrest is a time in our history when everything stops working, cars, planes, computers, etc. The Journeyman was once a screenwriter in Hollywood, but has traveled across the country to Maine to help his sister and her farm. It is somewhat of apocalyptic dystopian novel and I thought by the description you would be a great story. But the Journeyman was boring, not sure what his purpose was. Although, I finished reading the book, and the writing was okay, it just wasn’t for me.