World Made by Hand
By James Howard Kunstler
336 pages. Atlantic Monthly.

What's after Armageddon? No government, no laws, no infrastructure, no oil, no industry...and sometimes a sense of relief. In James Howard Kunstler's richly imagined World Made by Hand (Atlantic Monthly), the bone-weary denizens of Union Grove (with its echo of Our Town's Grover's Corners) cope with everything from mercenary thugs to religious extremists, yet manage to plant a few seeds of human decency that bear fruit.