First Note: New Novel out soon!!!

“Warehoused: The Plight of The 21st Century Working Class” is an autobiographical effort by Peter Graves Roberts. In “Warehoused” Roberts explores the process of a middle aged mind, bending to accept the consequence of choices made by a younger man. Main character Peter Butler, takes us on a narrative journey through several week’s work as a part time laborer for a large kite company in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The story begins as arthritis stricken Butler accepts punishing warehouse work in order to achieve a more secured and desirable job. A stumble into a warehouse full of faces with stories quickly turns into an introspective and prophetic take on the connection between a failing American economy and a shift in the balance of the global economy. Along the way Butler deals with the emotional tax of a dying mother, lucid nightmares, and the task of holding it all together as a clinically depressed husband and father. In the end, on the waterfront at a childhood friend’s house, in an epiphytic and philosophical trance the two discuss the weight of a looming stock market crash and subsequent reversal of the American role of importer to exporter while the rest of the world looks to us as the producers of cheap, toxic consumables. In the last scene, thoughts on killing a Mallard for meat and the wasted time therein leads to reflection upon a time when such practice was the day’s work, and a solemn realization and acceptance that the work of today’s human is hollow and without any real reward .