Official Foster     |   home back to   One Mile From the Gas Station: A Tale of Midwest Agony Synopsis   |   Images Synopsis The year is 2000, the setting is Des Moines, Iowa, the story is crude.  Savage addicts teetering on the brink of homelessness draw together and rent a three bedroom dump on the east side of Des Moines.  Through the eyes of the narrator and author, Adam Foster, the reader is taken on a frenzied journey through the minds and misdeeds of a group of young adults who push their envelope. The narrator explains in detail the horror and the confusion that ensues while holed in the east Des Moines trap.  Foster meets drug addicts, sex fiends and criminals all the while trying to turn his spiraling life back into an ascension.  Violence erupts at every turn and even the smallest of incidences become ballooned into horrific dramas. Foster introduces an array of main characters that collide together, forming the mayhem that was.  Foster also introduces many other faces and events close to the Des Moines community, which eventually come falling down with the chaos and corruption in the house. Foster uses vivid details and sheer brutal facts to paint the picture of his ascension that can only be likened to that of Dante and Virgil's quest.  While acting as a transparent character in the novel, Foster also brings about changes in the hearts of his readers when they realize the very essence of his work is truth and pain.