The Witch of Hebron, James Howard Kunstler
The Witch of Hebron, James Howard Kunstler
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The Witch of Hebron

Author: James Howard Kunstler

Series: A World Made by Hand Novel

Narrator: Jim Meskimen

Unabridged: 10 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/29/2025


Synopsis

The bestselling author of The Long Emergency returns with a gripping, darkly amusing sequel to his novel World Made by Hand, which Alan Cheuse of NPR called “brilliant.”

In the tiny hamlet of Union Grove, New York, the electricity has flickered off, the internet is a distant memory, and the government is little more than a rumor. Travel may be horse-drawn and farming back at the center of life, but Union Grove is no pastoral haven. Wars are fought over dwindling resources and illness is a constant presence. Bandits roam the countryside, preying on the weak and a sinister cult threatens to shatter the town’s fragile stability.

In The Witch of Hebron, a novel that is both shocking and eerily convincing, renowned social commentator James Howard Kunstler expands on his vision of post-oil society in America. In what Booklist has called “suspenseful, darkly amusing story with touches of the fantastic in the mode of Washington Irving,” he seamlessly weaves together prescient issues such as the perils of climate crisis into a compelling narrative of violence, religious hysteria, innocence lost, and love found.

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is a renowned cultural critic and author of many acclaimed books, including the bestselling works of nonfiction The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere and his series of fictional depictions of the post-oil American future, World Made by Hand and its three sequels. He has been a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine and Op-Ed page, where he wrote on environmental and economic issues, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Metropolis, Rolling Stone, and Playboy, among other publications. He lives in Washington County, upstate New York. His work may be found at Kunstler.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jason on September 27, 2010

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.) I'm not sure why exactly I decided to read James Howard Kunstler's newest post-apocalyptic "doom-n-gloomer"......more

Goodreads review by Sandi on November 14, 2011

I won this through First Reads. I was a little worried when I got this that I might not be able to follow it because I hadn't read World Made by Hand. Fortunately, this is one of those sequels that completely stands alone. It's a cozy post-apocalyptic story in which a boy runs away, gets tied up wit......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on October 23, 2011

While the characters and plot had promise, the effect of the novel felt very hollow to me. I can only point to the prose itself, where phrases were coined from cerebral rather than visual or emotional words. Some moments were evident where the writer tried to be writer-ly, which threw a wet blanket......more

Goodreads review by Megan on October 22, 2010

Kunstler makes the post-oil life in a small upstate NY town sound a little too good to be true. Sure, half of the US population is dead, there's no electricity and people don't stray too far from home because of packs of roving bandits...but there's still fresh garden produce, local cheese, homemade......more

Goodreads review by Holly on October 15, 2010

This book was a bit of a come down from World Made by Hand in writing style - I think Kunstler used up all of his nature adjectives in the first one - but had a much more activity & forward motion. However, the lack of any lesbian, gay, or queer presence in TWO novels about the future really pisses......more