Broken Ground employs a construction project in the Oregon desert as the basis for a story with far-reaching political and moral implications. Hank Lafleur has been sent to supervise the project, which is a prison-for-profit financed by a multinational corporation under government contract, and meant to house felons, illegal immigrants, and, as Lafleur comes to learn, political prisoners from Latin America. Broken Ground is remarkable for its prophetic vision of the hollow securities promised by incarceration and of the effects of "privatization" as an armature of American imperialism - in both the domestic and international realms.
"In John Keeble's extraordinary novel, Broken Ground, a social fable for our time, every element has its double in the illuminating realm of metaphor. . . . No other serious American novel has confronted so directly and so eerily the slithery power of corporate dominance over humble lives as well as over our changing, dehumanized landscape."
Lynne Sharon Schwartz
"Broken Ground rumbles with metaphor, and the book seems to propel itself toward revelations about our individual, collective, and national spirit."
