Ongoing

I'm working on an as yet untitled book that will attempt to document my perspective on, basically, what is wrong with suburbia: The attitudes it is borne out of and cultivates, the detriment to humanity, the contagious pathology that forces the worst of it to permeate our entire culture, the rabid and useless competitiveness, etc. The conduit for this will be a fictional, third person portrayal of two individuals living in the same community, working at the same corporation etc. They will essentially take turns being protagonists in each chapter. Each one, while having the requisite despicable characteristic or two, somehow sees thru the bullshit of suburban life in a seperate category and thereby becomes overly fascinated by the manifestations of these "lies".
Roj becomes interested in the way the gov't and media manipulates the lives of those around him and begins to detest and distrust those who "buy in" to the system (be it work, celebrity worship, or gov't policy). Thru a combination of a hated relative's influence and the memory of a childhood tragedy he becomes increasingly interested in conspiracy theory and especially the tangible evidence of it (i.e. numbers stations). His interest becomes a paranoia that eventually proves to be his downfall and thus his shameful exodus from suburban life.
Al, a bit more optimistic and jovial than Roj, becomes fascinated with unexplainable phenomenon. If Roj is the dinnertime unspeakable topic of politics then Al is religion. He defies the existing x-ian stranglehold on his community and family and manages to adopt a benevolent worldview that, because of it's opposition to the status quo, leads to his downfall and shameful exodus from suburbia.
The two, as aforementioned, are interrelated because of their geography and employment. Both work for a large, faceless firm. One uses production statistics to create reports, the other uses reports generated by the company to generate useful statistics for stakeholders. They begin the story with a healthy even outspoken dislike for each other; a reality that is revealed to be based wholly on the competitive urge internalized by suburban culture. Who's grass is greener? Who's spouse is more attractive and by what standard? Who's kid is better at sports? Who gets to work faster? Thru a series of events they begin to at least appreciate the other, tho again suburban culture works to prevent adult men from forming new friendships.

That's really not the whole thing, and I suppose it seems quite complex. But I guess I think about it at the level of what everything means rather than as a general outline of events. Does it sound interesting? Let me know . . . .