Exile from Eden

Exiles from Eden explores issues of self-reliance, sexuality, and quests for knowledge. It offers opportunities to discuss how society might change in the wake of a global disaster.

Arek is a curious 16-year-od, eager to learn how things work beyond the hole he's been living in for more than a decade and a half. He's devoted and strongly attracted to Mel, his female compatriot who is more or less the voice of sanity. A boy named Breakfast celebrates his own wildness and stays remarkably upbeat living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Arek is white, Mel mixed race-Asian, but Breakfast is described as "brown," which may simply be from living aboveground in the dust.

Arek often worries about sex in general and masturbation in particular. He and Mel eventually have their first sexual encounter together, but the act is not described in any detail. Of the two, Mel is the more matter-of-fact. It is also made clear that Arek's two dads are sexually intimate.

Arek and Mel pick up supplies at an abandoned WalMart.