Florence's best friend who comes to stay at Florence's house just before the bombing, and ends up staying there with the other survivors. Alice is the only one who continues to go into work as the Fort Repose librarian every day after the attack, because she believes books will raise everyone's spirits.
Randy's house-cleaner, Two-Tone's wife, and matriarch of the Henry farm. Missouri is good-natured, loud, and fond of dancing. Missouri's husband, so-named because his face has two shades of color. Two-Tone is significantly lazier than everyone else on the Henry farm. Two-Tone's brother, who also lives on the Henry farm. Malachai is the first person Randy trusts with the knowledge of the imminent attack, because he knows Malachai will take it seriously.
Randy's lover and eventual wife. Lib is an attractive young woman and seems a bit naive at first, but proves herself to be quite smart and resourceful once her mother dies and she and her father move in with Randy. A retired military man who also lives on River Road. The survivors make use of his short-wave radio because it is their only connection to the events of the war going on outside Fort Repose. A poor, beautiful, yet manipulative woman who lives in Pistonville, a slum located near Fort Repose.
She is an ex-girlfriend of Randy's, so initially Randy refuses to ask her for help, but she turns out to be a valuable asset in the face of trouble with bandits. The president of the Fort Repose bank; he's incredibly stingy and does not know how to deal with the dollar's sudden loss of value in the wake of the attack, so he is eventually driven to suicide.
Missouri and Two-Tone's son, who is around Ben Franklin's age. The two boys enjoy playing together on Ben Franklin's visits to Fort Repose.
Paul makes a reappearance at the end of the novel as a member of the Decontamination Team sent to Fort Repose. In this moment, Randy realizes that he's done more than survive a nuclear war. He's built a community. As time rolls on, the biggest threat to that community becomes highwaymen. Jim Hickey, the beekeeper, is murdered alongside his wife during a home invasion. But the worst comes when Dan Gunn is brutally assaulted and robbed coming back from a house call.
Not only have the highwaymen beaten and partially blinded Randy's best friend, but they've also stolen his medical equipment. That hurts the entire town. Furious, Randy kicks into actions, launching an ambitious secret ambush against the highwaymen. Here's his explanation:. I have been legally designated to keep order when normal authority breaks down. By now, Randy has comfortably slipped into a leadership position in Fort Repose. He's going to protect his town from the baddies, even if he has to get his hands dirty along the way.
In a bizarre bit of synergy, Randy launches this assault on the same day he marries Lib McGovern. He and Lib were an item before The Day, but he never dove in head over heels, perhaps because he saw her as some spoiled, stuck-up Yankee. But after spending months together in post-apocalypse, he's gained a new appreciation for her as a strong, determined woman. Of course, there are perhaps a few un -woke things about the novel's portrayal of Lib, but you can read more about them in her section.
Then, about a year after The Day, a military helicopter touches down on Randy's property. The pilots, who are performing a recon mission in the contaminated regions, are shocked to see Fort Repose: it's in better shape than places untouched by nukes.
Good job, Randy. He never wanted to be a leader, but he takes on the job because those who had power had abdicated it or abused it. As Randy assumes more authority, he is careful not to make the same mistakes as those who previously held power.
A major theme of the novel is survival. Randy knows that civilization had to be rebuilt, although it will not be easy, cut off as they were from needed goods and services deep inside a Contaminated Zone. Necessity being the mother of invention, he and the other characters find new food sources and alternative ways to get things done. Randy, unlike Kitty Offenhaus, is not a racist.
He had served in the military with blacks and had learned to value and respect them. However, in the segregated South, it was difficult to escape an ambivalent attitude toward blacks. She is competent under pressure, to the point of being her best when under fire. Helen is a fast learner. She learns some basic medical skills from Dr. Gunn and puts her knowledge and cool-under-pressure nature to work after the assault on the doctor.
She even learns hypnosis in order to help Dr. Gunn in future emergencies. Still, Helen is a woman and needs a man in her life to feel complete. The first sign Randy has of this is during her momentary emotional breakdown when she thinks Randy is Mark.
Lib also sees this and makes it a special project to be the matchmaker, getting Helen and the doctor together. By the end of the novel, she and the doctor are close enough to discuss marriage. Helen, however, will not marry Dr. Gunn until she is certain that Mark is dead. As the novel progresses, Helen has more and more opportunities to be cool and competent under pressure.
This gradually changes her and she, like Randy, becomes a leader and a powerful force in the Bragg house. Like many other characters in the novel, Lib starts out soft and ends up tough. She, unlike Rita Hernandez, genuinely cares for Randy. Throughout the novel, her care and concern for him is evident.
Eventually, after her mother dies, her father changes his opinion of Randy - this enables Lib to be more open in her affection for Randy. Randy and Lib are married on Easter Sunday.
There is no honeymoon as Randy immediately sets off on his assault on the highwaymen. When Randy moves Lib into his house, there is some friction between her and Helen. This concerns Randy, but Dr. Dan tells him that the two women will eventually resolve their differences and become friends.
We cannot point to a particular time in the novel when the change from competitors to friends occurs but, midway through the novel, Helen and Lib are friends, one usually not far from the other. Dan Gunn is the town doctor for Fort Repose, his partner being killed in the raid by the drug addicts on the clinic.
He is, at heart, an idealist who wanted to spend his career treating the sick in faraway lands. He was motivated by a desire to heal, not by the money or prestige that a medical career would offer him.
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