One Second After

When Jen’s Edsel is introduced, the car is viewed as a dinosaur from a bygone era. John makes good-natured fun of it: “‘Jennifer was expecting a ride in that monstrous car of yours.’ ‘The Edsel, my dear young man, was a generation ahead of its time.’ ‘And the biggest flop in the history of Ford Motors. My God, look at that grille; it’s ugly as sin’” (27). 

Despite John’s initial derision, the car becomes his lifeline after the EMP strike. Because the Edsel is not run by a computer, it can still function, which allows the family a level of mobility that is not achieved by other residents until months later. John uses it to transport his father-in-law from the nursing home, and later, he and a group of town officials drive it to Asheville to receive vital news of disaster relief efforts. The car’s radio even inspires a plan to monitor outside broadcasts by setting up an old car radio in city hall. 

When the Edsel was first manufactured in 1958, Ford promoted it as the car of the future. But it was a commercial failure, and production ended after only two years. If the Edsel had truly been the car of the future, the transportation crisis depicted in the novel would never have occurred.