Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #903 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-11
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Kunstler's name is mostly associated with nonfiction works like The Long Emergency, a bleak prediction of what will happen when oil production no longer meets demand, and the antisuburbia polemic The Geography of Nowhere. In this novel, his 10th, he visits a future posited on his signature idea: when the oil wells start to run dry, the world economy will collapse and society as we know it will cease. Robert Earle has lost his job (he was a software executive) and family in the chaos following the breakdown. Elected mayor of Union Grove, N.Y., in the wake of a town crisis, Earle must rebuild civil society out of squabbling factions, including a cultish community of newcomers, an established group of Congregationalists and a plantation kept by the wealthy Stephen Bullock. Re-establishing basic infrastructure is a big enough challenge, but major tension comes from a crew of neighboring rednecks led by warlord Wayne Karp. Kunstler is most engaged when discussing the fate of the status quo and in divulging the particulars of daily life. Kunstler's world is convincing if didactic: Union Grove exists solely to illustrate Kunstler's doomsday vision. Readers willing to go for the ride will see a frightening and bleak future. (Mar.)
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Customer Reviews

Thought Provoking and an Absorbing Story
I almost didn't buy this book despite having bought all of Kunstler's non-fiction books, going back to his early books on architecture and urban design. "So... he's written a novel... hmmmm..."

Is he the next Faulkner? Well, no, but this was actually one of the best novels I've read in the last year or two. He has a real command of the basics: a good story and interesting, realistic characters. The literary savants swooned over Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" for reasons I don't get at all -- cardboard characters wandering around in an utterly unrealistic world where absolutely nothing grows (folks, if something ever manages to kill the ferns, which survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, there aren't going to be any people wandering around).

What I enjoyed about this book is that it paints a quite realistic picture of a future that is at least somewhat probable. It makes you think (and boy, when it comes to our energy future, there's lots to think about) and draws you in to a very absorbing world which reflects Kunstler's deep knowledge of the area in upstate NY where he lives. And you care about the people in the book because they seem very much like the people you run into every day (the protagonist is obviously very loosely autobiographical).

The book this reminded me of was Kim Stanley Robinson's wonderful "The Wild Shore," a more depressing book by far, but one that also focuses on the struggles of ordinary people to make the best of a very strange and changed world.

"Hand Made World" also made me think about the fact that other than being a good cook, pretty much every skill I have would be utterly useless in the world Kunstler describes.

Read and Share
This book is readable, but not great literature; however, it is a starting place for discussion. OK, I hate the metaphysical stuff at the end, it gets in the way of the message about the dangers of living in a peak oil world, excessive greenhouse gas emissions, pandemics, etc.
CNN recently made a 1-hour documentary called "Out of Gas, We Were Warned" that legitimizes the idea that possibly a perfect storm of events could turn our comfy, energy-rich world upside down, as it did in Kunstler's book.

I've read this book a couple of times and lent it out. No one wants to hear this message, but it is worthy of discussion and can provide an opening for bringing up a topic.

I would like to read a sequel, but please leave out the mumbo-jumbo, James.

I truly enjoyed it!
I grabbed a few books from the library and headed to the beach over the 4th. Three novels in four days, all with an apocalyptic bent. Maybe it wasn't five stars, but it certainly seemed that way after reading the other two...yikes!
You can read a summary of the plot elsewhere, but the condensed version is that we've taken a giant step back into the 18th century after the collapse of the Oil Age.
Plot twists aside, what I really enjoyed about the book was listening to Kunstlers' gentle writing voice. I was transported to a different, harder, world and I found that I liked it there! The scrabble for survival made me wonder whether I'd be up to the challenge, and I began to appreciate the themes of self-reliance that ran through the story. It reminded me of the slightly mystical feelings I experienced reading Thoreau and Emerson.
Plot wise? Maybe not that great. For me, the book was more about the journey than the destination. Worth a read.