Earth Abides

This is my first post deviating from the previous four years ... this will be entirely random, and my random thought today is that my daughter, Kathryn, just finished reading "Earth Abides", by George R. Stewart (no relation, I don't think?). This is a book I've had for a couple of years, and I've got an audio version of it (bought it first) and then a hard-copy, paperback version. I used to say that "East of Eden", by Steinbeck, was my favorite book. Now I'm not so sure. I've read and listened to "Earth Abides" three or four times now, and it never seems to get stale. Every time I listen/read this book I discover something new. It's a post-apocalyptic novel, but not in a zombie, burnt out future (Mad Max) kind of way.

A young grad student, Isherwood Williams, is up in the woods near San Francisco. He gets bitten by a rattlesnake, and cannot get off the mountain he's on and suffers through days of sickness. When he finally gets off the mountain, he discovers that he's all alone - everyone has died from some kind of pandemic while he's been in the back country. This is the story of his life after the event. Who he meets, how they form families and neighborhoods, how their offspring thrive (or not), and how he manages the slow disintegration of technology (while this novel was written in the 50's - it's amazing the amount of technology already around that people depend on - think power grid, flushing toilets, bullets, canned food). The book is epic in it's sweep of the new history, and chronicles Ish's entire life.

I don't know that I'm quite ready to replace "East of Eden" for this book, but I'm tempted.