World Made by Hand

The World Made by Hand Novels, Book 1

By: James Howard Kunstler

Narrated by: Jim Meskimen

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In The Long Emergency, celebrated social commentator James Howard Kunstler explored how the terminal decline of oil production combined with climate change had the potential to put industrial civilization out of business. In World Made by Hand, an astonishing work of speculative fiction, Kunstler brings to life what America might be, a few decades hence, after these catastrophes converge.

The electricity has flickered out. The automobile age is over. In Union Grove, a little town in upstate New York, the future is nothing like people thought it would be. Life is hard and close to the bone. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president, and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren’t sure. The townspeople’s challenges play out in a dazzling, fully realized world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields and rivers, no longer polluted, and replenished with fish.

This is the story of Robert Earle and his fellow townspeople and what happens to them one summer in a country that has changed profoundly. A powerful tale of love, loss, violence, and desperation, World Made by Hand is also lyrical and tender, a surprising story of a new America struggling to be born - a story more relevant now than ever.

©2008 James Howard Kunstler (P)2010 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“Richly imagined.” ( O, The Oprah Magazine)

“Far from a typical postapocalyptic novel…An impassioned and invigorating tale whose ultimate message is one of hope, not despair.” ( San Francisco Chronicle)

“Brilliant.” ( Chicago Tribune)

I actually enjoyed it.

If you could sum up World Made by Hand in three words, what would they be?

This is similar to the rest of a growing genre of post apocalyptic and slow apocalyptic fiction. This is my favorite from what I've heard thus far. I listened to this about a year or so ago, and am looking for more in the genre. I found myself saying, "are there any more of those World Made by Hand stories. I liked them."

What other book might you compare World Made by Hand to and why?

Patriots - James Wesley Rawles
American Apocalypse - Nova

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

not really.

Enjoyable Easy Read

Where does World Made by Hand rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Pretty good story and an idea of what the world could be but I would have enjoyed more detail. I would call this 'peak-oil or post apocalyptic lite'. I will listen to book 2 , The Witch of Hebron next.

Which character – as performed by Jim Meskimen – was your favorite?

I enjoyed Jim Meskimen's narration a great deal. Whether he was speaking for Brother Jobe, Wayne Karp, the main character Robert Earl, even the women, he was very flexible. I would definitely listen to an audio narration by him again and would put him in the class of Will Patton as a narrator (Alas, Babylon) - Excellent!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Did it in a couple of sittings, the story line was interesting enough and Jim Meskiman's narrating style were solid.

Any additional comments?

Minor annoyance: The word

Great start, but then . . .

Any additional comments?

Disease and other complications have returned the world to pre-petroleum technology - a traditional setting for this genre. We are in a town that is hobbling along, relying on tradition and custom, rather than any real government or law enforcement. Much of this book, the first in a series (I know there is another one out, but I haven't yet read it), is a great introduction to the protagonist, whose wife has died and whose son left town a few years before. He is in a relatively secret relationship with the wife of his best friend, the local Congregationalist minister (although it is apparently not a secret to the minister - they just never talk about it). A cultish group of men and women have bought the local high school and are fixing it up as a place to live. At times cooperative, they also demonstrate that they are willing to violate others' rights to get them to conform to their expectations and religion. At the same time, a group on the edge of town who supply materials gleaned from garbage dumps and demolition, are also demonstrating their unwillingness to abide by standard modes of behavior; they engage in an apparent murder, coercion, and theft. So with this - and an attractive young widow - as the backdrop, we become engaged in the protagonist's life, a life that is expressed in great detail. But as we get closer to the end of the book, and as we become to suspect that the science fiction in this story may not be limited to just the hypothesized near-future (indeed, it may creep over into fantasy, but we don't ever get to really know in this book), the detail starts to be overlooked. The book rushes to an end. Now I know that the details may come out in the next volume, but the way that the likely war was averted between the town and the inhabitants of the junk yard was just too easy. If the book just ended there, ok. But the protagonist relates a summary of the next few months, and somehow peace happens, his conjugal relationship with the young widow continues, and there is no mention of the reaction of his previous lover, the minister's wife. It just ends too smoothly. I would have preferred a cliff-hanger to the easy gloss that is provided. I happen to relish (and am writing a novel in) this genre, and I really enjoyed this book, up until the last - rushed - part. I have bought the next in the series, but I am a bit worried that the craft of the first three-quarters of the first book will not be achieved in the second. We will see.

Good story but couldn’t finish

I thought the story was good but there was so much cussing I couldn’t keep listening. It’s too bad so many authors fall into the habit of cussing so much. I think the same of authors that I do of people who cuss so much- it’s a lazy way to communicate, shows a lack of vocabulary and imagination. It’s too bad this author fell into this trap because the story had great potential.

Mad Max meets Mad Men

Mad Max meets Mad Men… not in a good way. Unequal parts interesting, boring and creepy.

love it

a very good read or listen. love the narrator he does an outstanding job. Love the series

A kind of Amish post-apocalypse

Among the many subgenres I have a weakness for, one of my favorites is the post-apocalyptic thriller. World Made By Hand is not a thriller, though there is some action and violence. It occupies some strange middle ground between The Stand and Earth Abides. James Howard Kunstler is more interested in telling a story about what people do when the lights go out and how they go back to churning their own butter and making their own candles than a broader story about the collapse of civilization. In fact, that theme (as indicated by the title of the novel) seems to be the reason why the author wrote this book. While the residents of Union Grove, New York now live hard, sometimes precarious lives, and Kunstler does not neglect to show people suffering trauma and not coping very well with the death of the world they knew, the subtext throughout the book seems to be "Maybe it's better this way." The narrator, who by virtue of being the only responsible adult who was too much of a sucker not to say 'No' is now the mayor of Union Grove, frequently ruminates on how much better and sturdier things are now when you have to make them to last, just like in the old days, and seems to regard his old modern consumer life with a mixture of yearning and ironic disdain.

So there is quite a bit of talk about how people have gone back to a primarily agrarian existence, without oil or electricity, and how they struggle to survive when most folks don't have the skills needed for a post-industrial society. It's one of those books that makes you think about what you would do: if all of a sudden we got knocked back to the 19th century by some sort of apocalypse, do you have any survival skills? Any useful skills that would make you valuable to a community. Well, I'm no prepper and I'm afraid my own skill set would probably prove a bit meager.

We aren't given many details about what happened in this world made by hand. There is talk of recent wars in the Middle East, and bombs took out Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles and other cities (though apparently not New York City), and the U.S. government, and global civilization, seems to have essentially collapsed. The folks in Union Grove get little news from up the Hudson and even less from anywhere outside New York.

That said, they have been, as Brother Job of the New Faith Church points out, awfully lucky so far. They've managed to keep their town running with no major disasters, and their region has not yet reached the stage of feuding warlords and roving bandit gangs. However, lawlessness is certainly taking over the countryside, which causes most of the problems in the book as they have to deal first with a trade ship that was sent down the Hudson to New York City and never returned, and then with a local troublemaker who has set himself up as a feudal lord on the edge of town with a bunch of bikers, vagrants, and other ne'er do wells.

The New Faith Church, a bunch of healthy young evangelicals, show up in Union Grove and want to settle there, which proves to be a mixed blessing. They are (it seems) basically clean, decent, hard-working folks, and they bring fresh blood and, incidentally, a lot of combat vets. However, they definitely have proselytizing on the agenda, and being an instant power in the community, there are bound to be tensions.

It's a well-constructed story and the world, while light on details, makes sense. No major suspensions of disbelief, until the end, where Kunstler seems to be hinting at the encroaching of supernatural elements. As Brother Job says, "Science don't rule the roost no more." It's both odd given the straightforward, realistic style of the rest of the novel, and also seems to be in keeping with the idea of a "world made by hand" being somehow deeper and more spiritual.

Well, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't terribly exciting, and I'm not inclined to sign up for the rest of the series to learn just how religious the author decides to get. Yes, our modern consumer lifestyle probably is unsustainable and many things are lost when everything is commercial and transient. On the other hand, as the events in World Made By Hand show, it's not a great improvement to let the world be run by whoever has the most charisma and guns, and I have no faith in the nice folks of the New Faith Church not turning into witch-burning science-hating zealots given a generation or so to cement their power. So, while I feel a certain sympathy for the idea that the world would actually be a better place without Walmarts and reality TV, I'm not willing to throw out electricity, antibiotics, and indoor plumbing to get it.

makes you think

what will the future be like? What happens if things go south? how will man kind recover? what will life be like? Here is one tale to make you think.

He said, she said, I said

The actual story line is good, the narration is good, but the author couldn’t seem to find a way to write dialog without ending everything with “he said”, “she said”, “I said.” It reminded me of a Dick and Jane children’s book. (Hi” Jane said. “How are you?” Dick said. “Bark” the dog said. “That was funny” Jane said.) The narrator changed his voice when reading the different character’s dialog so he could have
just left it out even if that is how the author wrote it. It’s crazy something so small could distract from an otherwise good story but it really does.

A Well told story

“A World Made By Hand” paints a vivid picture of what life could be like when all of the modern world’s conveniences are gone through lack of oil. If you’re looking for an action packed post apocalypse thriller this probably isn’t for you, but what it lacks in action it more than makes up for in storytelling. Everything from what has happened to make the world this way to the everyday actions of the characters are painted so vividly that you could practically be there. The characters are liable well thought out and the story is so interesting compared to other post-apocalyptic novels. While other novels are almost exclusively small groups or individuals trying to stay alive this book focuses on a whole community. I can’t wait to get into the other books in the series.

The narrator was great with the different characters and really brought the story to life.