In his best-selling nonfiction book “The Long Emergency” (2005), James Howard Kunstler argued that we would soon face a crisis that would force some radical changes for America and other countries around the world. His newest work “World Made by Hand” (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24, 317 pages) is a speculative piece of fiction that brings that future world into sharp focus.

“My book is sort of nostalgia for the future,” said Kunstler in a recent interview from his home near Saratoga Springs. “It’s a future world that’s more tranquil. People aren’t tyrannized by automobiles and machines and computers. They aren’t being bombarded by incessant commercials and ads.”

In the book, the residents of Union Grove, situated in Washington County but sounding very much like Saratoga Springs, live in a world that lacks oil and electricity. They also suffer from climate change, global pandemics and wars over our country’s vanishing resources. These people live in a world of abandoned highways with ruined suburban malls. Food is grown locally and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a U.S. president, and he may be in Minneapolis, but it’s little more than a rumor.

“There are elements of this world that are wishful,” said Kunstler. “To survive, people have to work with their neighbors on things that matter. They don’t sit in a cubicle gazing into the Internet all day.”

Nature rebounds

In this future world, nature seems to be reclaiming what was once paved over and torn down. “The sweetness of an agrarian society has great appeal to me,” said Kunstler, “and I intend to go back to this world and write additional books, probably one for each season and probably in order.”

With this first book, Kunstler has created an intriguing future world and populated it with a number of characters, relationships and conflicts that aren’t fully resolved at the end.

“There are also some supernatural elements that come along near the end of the book,” said Kunstler, “mostly relating to this Evangelical cult that has relocated to the town from the South. Like the reader, I’m not quite sure what it all means either. When I started the story, I didn’t really plot it all out. That’s part of the fun of writing. You create the framework of a world, and then you populate it and allow those people to behave according to the logic they have.”

Kunstler is frustrated that his book has been largely ignored by most of the major papers. “Reviewers don’t seem to get the book,” he said. “This novel is based on issues that are disturbing to people, the end of the oil age, the threat to the American way of life as we know it, and the economic terrorism associated with that. There are also some readers who don’t think this book is apocalyptic enough because there are some saving graces to it.”

Making a point

These are themes that Kunstler has been writing steadily about since 1993 when his nonfiction book “The Geography of Nowhere,” was published. That book created quite a buzz when it explored the rise and decline of the American landscape. It was critical of our spread-out, privatized suburban wasteland and especially our love affair with the automobile.

“I didn’t want this book to be didactic and pedantic,” said Kunstler of his newest work. “I wanted it to be a ripping yarn. Readers are intelligent enough to pick up on some of the central themes of this book.”

According to Kunstler, one of the main things at issue in this story is who is in charge, who adjudicates things, and where is the justice. “I knew I wanted to get some of the characters out of Union Grove,” said Kunstler. “That’s why I had them travel to Albany in search of some residents that had disappeared in a boating trip. I wanted the book to go to a larger world so I could show the lawless society out there.”

Kunstler is quick to point out that he’s not a hopeless person. “None of my books suggest that our situation is hopeless,” he said, “although I think we’re in store for some pretty severe changes, and it remains to be seen if we can pull ourselves together to prepare ourselves for these hardships.”

In the past 15 years, he has traveled throughout our country, giving lectures to colleges and civic organizations. “And they’re all screaming for solutions,” said Kunstler. “What I’ve realized is that they’re looking for rescue remedies so they can keep buying stuff at Wal-Mart, keep going to Walt Disney World and keep driving the interstate highway system.”

He says that’s a big reason some people are excited about alternative energy fuels. “We’ll try everything to keep our lifestyle the way it is,” said Kunstler, “but the reality is that we’re going to have to reorganize life in a comprehensive way. It’s not something we’re incapable of doing, but we’re getting an awfully late start.”

Advocate of rails

One project Kunstler would love to see us enact right away as a country is to revive the passenger rail system. “That would be so beneficial,” he said, “and it would cut way back on our oil use. It would also put a lot of people back to work. The infrastructure is out there rusting in the rain all around our country. We need a project we can do right away to demonstrate that we’re competent so that we can enter this difficult future with some confidence.”

Kunstler refuses to get discouraged. “There are plenty of intelligent cohorts who agree with me,” he said. “They live all around the country, and there are plenty of people right here in the Capital District that are hip to what’s going on.”

He will continue to write books, both fiction and nonfiction, and every Monday morning he publishes his own blog filled with his thoughts and opinions about current events, both local and national. “This stuff is too important for me to sit by and watch,” said Kunstler. “I’m a writer, and I want my writing to be filled with intelligent conviction about issues that are important to me and hopefully to others. Sometimes, I’ll do it through nonfiction in my books and my blog, and sometimes I’ll do it through fiction.”