"The Harrows of Spring: A World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler
https://www.amazon.com/Harrows-Spring-World-Made-Novel/dp/0802126812/

Book number four of a four book apocalyptic fantasy series. I read the
well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Grove Press in
2017 that I bought new on Amazon. I am hoping for my books in the
series but doubt it.

In this alternate reality, oil well fracking was not invented and the
world started running out of crude oil in 2008. Then somebody popped
off a large nuclear bomb in Los Angeles and somebody popped off a larger
nuclear bomb in Washington DC. And the world slowed down and the USA
moved back to the 1800s over the next several decades. We were back to
the times that the flu, encephalitis, and tetanus killed significant
portions of the population. This series is set roughly in 2030 or 2040.
The books are page turners with short three to five page chapters.

The town of Union Grove, New York has decayed significantly over time.
No cars, either buy/rent a horse or walk where you are going. No
electricity and the farms are worked by hand now with horses and mules.
The population is maybe 20% of what it was at the turn of the century so
there are houses standing empty all over town. All of the older people
remember cars, airplanes, antibiotics, and air conditioning but the
young people don't.

It is spring now and things are doing better but the food is short until
the spring planting come in. If you want to eat, you must work. Robert
Earle's son Daniel is going to revive the town newspaper but has to get
the newsprint first, he made his own ink. And bunch of hustlers has hit
the county looking for silver and gold coins.

The author has an active website at
https://kunstler.com/
Warning, the author's website is fairly crude.

My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (517 reviews)

Lynn