The setting for this aftermath is Union Grove, N.Y., less than an hour's drive north of Albany in today's terms but several days' travel in the novel's new world. Events have so shrunk townspeople's outlook that no one knows if there's still a president, and evil outsiders come not from overseas but the lawless trailer-park compound outside town.
Robert Earle is the central character, a former Brookline marketing executive employed by a Route 128 software firm. He and his family headed west after jihadis followed up a nuclear attack on Washington with one on Los Angeles. They settled in Union Grove to live with his wife's father, but before long, not only is Earle's father-in-law dead, but his wife and one of his children have fallen victim to a killer flu.
Despite people's narrowed focus, there is still plenty of us vs. them in Union Grove. In addition to long-timers like Earle and Wayne Karp's unruly army of scavengers out by the dump, there is Stephen Bullock's fruitful plantation, which seems a harbinger of future serfdom, and the New Faith community, a quirky band of Christian soldiers whose decision to move into the decrepit high school sets the novel in motion.
One pitfall in painting a convincing picture of the future is forgetting all the small ways in which life would differ if big changes swept in. Kunstler avoids it, and his catalog of such finer points is a subtle, continuing pleasure. There are few spices, for example, because even pepper is imported. There's not much paper, because it comes from factories, but vellum is making a comeback. So are fish, which benefit from the lack of factory-made tackle and outboard motors, not to mention all the anglers lost to the epidemic.
