Geoff Thignon is a fish out of water. He plays on the school basketball team even though he hates it - and even though he is mercilessly bullied by team member Derek Driver. Geoff quits and begins spending his free time at the library, where he meets Alice Bezeras, a goth obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. Alice exposes Geoff to a world he didn't know existed-of underground music, videogames, and role-playing. After the pair are traumatized by the TV movie The Day After, Alice invents Anytown USA, a role-playing game designed to deal with the catastrophic anxiety of nuclear war. But as she develops the game, she realizes the threat is worse than she imagined.
Geoff and Alice face the impending apocalypse by immersing themselves in punk rock and a fantasy world of their own making, but does trying to escape broken homes with the stories they invent mean dire consequences for their real lives?
Fournier weaves this emotionally wrought coming-of-age story through Geoff's eyes, as well as characters in the role- playing campaigns, The Impasse reveals the connection between the personal and the political as its characters struggle to define themselves and find footing in a world that seems to be on the brink of destruction.