When a devastating EMP attack wipes out the electrical grid across the United States, the people of Clinton, Iowa suddenly find themselves cut off from the modern world—no phones, no internet, no refrigeration, no idea whether the federal government still exists, and only three days’ worth of patience remaining.

Mayor Frank Ramey is trying to keep the city functioning with lanterns, rationed gasoline, and whatever remains of Midwestern common sense. Unfortunately, common sense becomes increasingly difficult to locate after local National Guard commander Spencer Tweed declares emergency military authority and begins transforming Clinton into the self-proclaimed Republic of Eastern Iowa.

Soon the city finds itself dealing with armed checkpoints, improvised curfews, refugee rumors, fuel confiscation orders, suspicious soup regulations, and a growing number of heavily armed men who seem unclear on the difference between disaster preparedness and community theater.

As civilization sputters uncertainly around them, Frank and the increasingly bewildered citizens of Clinton struggle to survive shortages, paranoia, political absurdity, and Spencer Tweed’s ongoing attempt to become the kind of wartime leader usually remembered by history documentaries and international tribunals.

By turns hilarious, tense, absurd, and unexpectedly heartfelt, The Republic of Eastern Iowa is a sharply observed satirical novel about small-town America, accidental authoritarianism, and the stubborn ordinary people who somehow keep civilization going anyway.

Even when civilization is behaving very strangely.