The book introduces us to the titular character, a 30-ish office clerk in London's Distribution Office; a government worker of no particular smarts or ambitions. An easygoing everyman, Savage, when we first encounter him, seems to have nothing more on his mind than collecting art prints and courting his boss' daughter, Phillida Rathbone, a stylish young woman who soon consents to be his fiancée. Not even the vague rumors of war looming on the horizon are sufficient to disturb the placidity of Theodore's existence. But sadly enough, those rumors do indeed prove to be borne out, and England and all of Europe are soon plunged into yet another conflict. The happy couple is separated when Theodore is sent up north to York, and it is in that ancient city that Theodore first sees the war come to his native land. As the bombings commence upon British soil, whole populations are displaced, food supplies grow short, communications are broken, and the people are quickly stripped of their civilized veneer. Theodore is detailed to an army unit guarding a precious food supply; a unit that is quickly overrun by the starving desperate hordes, leaving Savage beaten, battered and alone, but still somehow alive. And so, his years as a wanderer begin, as the world as we know it quickly devolves to an almost prehistoric level of barbarism. (Goodreads)
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