I first became aware of George R. Stewart's Earth Abides a few months ago, after hearing a radio adaptation on Escape! That two-part episode aired Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, 1950, just a year after the novel was published.
Some online sleuthing told me the book had been an influence on Richard Matheson, whose world-ending vampire plague I Am Legend is one of my favorites, and Stephen King, who went all apocalyptic—and post-apocalyptic—in The Stand.
Long story short, I decided to give Earth Abides a shot. A newish re-release from 2020 includes a terrific introduction by sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson that provides context for Stewart's story. It also points out the resurgence in the book's popularity in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
The novel itself has a lot to recommend it. The main character, Isherwood "Ish" Williams, is one of the few survivors of a highly lethal pandemic. He spends the first half of the book wandering from one side of the United States to the other, serving as a human version of Marvel's Uatu the Watcher and chronicling the end times.
Eventually, he meets some other folks and they form a loose-knit community that survives by pillaging the past—canned food from area grocery stores, clothing from department stores, and the like. Ish finds himself a reluctant leader in this tribe, even though everybody involved goes out of their way for as long as possible to avoid creating laws and rules. It's a be-on-your-best-behavior, honor code type of deal.
The tribe's successes and failures make up the bulk of the book's remaining pages and are often characterized by collective procrastination, waiting as long as possible before addressing various fundamental issues, like what to do when the water supply peters out. (Today, these survivors would probably be diagnosed as suffering from global trauma.)
Stewart's novel is short on action and long on Ish's philosophical musing. He fancies himself an intellectual and often comes off as stuffy or smarmy when he observes, repeatedly, that his post-apocalyptic wife, children, and neighbors are hard workers but not very intelligent. He ranges from sympathetic to insufferable, sometimes on the same page. For example, Ish observes:
George was a good man, too, in his fashion. He was a first-class carpenter, and had learned to do plumbing and painting and the other odd jobs around the house. He was a very useful man, and had preserved many basic skills. Yet Ish always knew that George was essentially stupid; he had probably never read a book in his life. (p. 187)
The last section of the book chronicles Ish's mental decline and eventual passing, where he is seen as The Last American, a term that carries almost spiritual significance with subsequent generations of survivors, for whom "America" is a nebulous term.
I like that Stewart intersperses the story of humanity with the resurgence of the natural world. Vignettes every few pages let readers see how various other species adapt to the fall of humanity, and how the world heals. For 1949, this is pioneering eco-friendliness.
Unfortunately, other parts of the novel have not aged so well. In particular, the way Ish and the rest of the community treat Evie, a mentally challenged woman, is problematic. At one point, an outsider—Charlie— preys on Evie and begins to abuse her sexually. Yet the best charge that Ish and company can devise against him is that "we don't want a lot of little half-witted brats running in on us, the sort of children Evie would have."
The book also displays a post-apocalyptic vibe similar to Alas Babylon and a few others that intimate how a worldwide pandemic or nuclear disaster might actually be a good thing, a cleansing and rebirth, a chance to live more in touch with one another and the land. Your mileage with such an attitude may vary, but I find it, I don't know, communally condescending? As if the only thing standing between humanity and perfection is a few billion too many people, so why not sacrifice some today?
I was glad I read the book and appreciative of Stewart's far-ranging imagination. Leaning into a more philosophical take on the end of the world was a gutsy narrative move, and if Isherwood "Ish" Williams is insufferable at times, at least Stewart gives us plenty of evidence to chew on, along with contradictions in character that make him more realistic.
After all, if each reader had to face pages of his own thoughts written down over decades, wouldn't he or she find more than a few that are troubling, disingenuous, and downright wrong? In Earth Abides, these provide verisimilitude, and no matter what readers think of Ish by the final page, they can't deny knowing him.
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