100 years after a Nuclear Holocaust, Henry and Melva Call and three generations of descendants adapt new methods and few materials to survive. Faced with a hostile environment, burning sun, no metals and rote-memory educations, most people are content with the status-quo. Not so Lucretia Harkness, their great-granddaughter. She remembers parts of her past lives and is determined to recreate a better life. The Call's and other families share romance, improbable discoveries, magic, pathos and tragedy as they trudge along 'that miserable road' called life in their lop-sided new Stone Age and semi-agrarian life.