Although the author is Norwegian, his quietly alarming novel is set in a generalized projection of a society disintegrating from the effects of industrial pollution and economic inadequacy. Air is unbreathable, water is undrinkable, all goods are in short supply, and all services are erratic. Nothing flourishes except bureaucracy, as a baffled government grinds out cradle-to-grave regulations that complicate a citizen"s life without improving it in the least. Mr. Faldbakken"s hero escapes from the mess with his wife and small son by fleeing to the vast dump that borders the city. There they find a few other refugees with whom, through ingenuity and a little violence, they construct the beginnings of a community.