Like a movie run backward, Tod Friendly's life is presented in fast rewind, giving Mr. Amis lots of opportunities to indulge in his penchant for sexual and scatological humor. Tod finds love letters in the fireplace or trash, fights with women before going to bed with them and eats and defecates in reverse. He makes love backward and eats and drinks backward, too. For that matter, the whole world, seen from the narrator's skewed perspective, seems wacky and out of kilter. Garbage men arrive every morning to dispense the trash, and every night pimps give their call girls plenty of cash.
Gas gets cheaper and cheaper, while cars become slower and less efficient.
They wash the wind. Just as they clean up all the trash and litter, they also clean up the earth and the sky, transmogrifying cars, turning tools, parts, weapons, bolts into carbon and iron. They've really got to grips with their environmental problems, facing them squarely, with common purpose. Tod Friendly changes his name to John Young, and later to Hamilton de Souza and Odilo Unverdorben. He leaves America for Portugal, and Portugal for Germany, where he becomes a member of the Nazi command at Auschwitz.