World Made By Hand

Über

World Made by Hand is a dystopian novel by James Howard Kunstler published in 2008. Set in the fictional town of Union Grove, New York, the novel follows a cast of characters as they navigate a world stripped of its modern comforts, ravaged by terrorism, epidemics, and the economic upheaval of peak oil, all of which are exacerbated by global warming.
Narrated by Robert Earle, a local carpenter who has lost his wife and son, the novel focuses on several contrasting groups meant to represent the directions society could go after a breakdown of modern social norms. In the beginning of the novel, the citizens of Union Grove are living on the tail end of a national catastrophe, with their community slowly falling apart from neglect and natural decay. One group is led by Wayne Karp, a rough leader of scrappers and thugs who salvage from around the county and live in a group of trailers known as Karptown. As the story begins Brother Jobe comes to town, the leader of a religious group called the New Faith Church, who come from the south and settle into the old high school.