Publisher's Synopsis
Welcome to very-near-future Los Angeles, where the economic divide and culture wars are at the tipping point. As neighborhood crime and homeless encampments infiltrate the fabric of idyllic suburbs, residents respond with fear and anger, vowing to do whatever it takes to hold on to their hard-earned American Dream, no matter the human cost.
We see communities ripped apart and marriages uprooted, embodied in the fraying dynamic between fortyish interior designer, Wendy Forman, and her husband, Brad, a physician who heads an exclusive concierge practice. Wendy starts her own neighborhood watch group to help fend off the bad guys. Brad runs into an injured man behind a dumpster at the local shopping center and tends to his wounds, which proves to be a life-changing interaction. It propels the doctor to moonlight outside his comfort zone in the world of street medicine, where he combs the campsites and freeway underpasses to treat the underserved. There, he bonds with the lost, the drug-addled; the discards, and forms a special connection with street-smart Laila Purcell, a woman who becomes determined to rise above what seems like an endless series of bad breaks.
Diasporama is where the well-heeled meet the shoeless. Where the unhinged bully the unhoused. Where every scrap of real estate is gold in somebody's pocket. Ergo, the empathy of street docs and the plight of the have-nots make little impact on political and corporate "haves." Conflicting passions lead to fierce battle, a fight to the finish for what kind of society we want to be, and how we choose to define wealth. The results are as surprising as they are profound.
