One Second After explores the nature of civilization: What is it? How is it sustained? How would human beings act without traditional rules to govern behavior? The EMP blast acts as the catalyst to test the limits of civilized behavior. 

The novel’s initial chapters depict a peaceful small town that could exist anywhere in America. Black Mountain might be mistaken for Andy Griffith’s Mayberry because everyone is neighborly and looks out for each other. However, as hunger and disease make people desperate, they become capable of horrible offenses against one another. All the local stores, as well as private homes, are looted for food and supplies. The residents of a nursing home are robbed by bandits who want to use their opiate medications as recreational drugs. Livestock theft devolves into human cannibalism.

John devotes much of his time and energy to simply keeping people from behaving like barbarians. Although the catastrophe that visits Black Mountain is extreme, the novel suggests how little it takes to turn honorable people into a pack of wild animals: “‘Damn our enemies who did this to us, they knew us well,’ John sighed. ‘They knew human nature too well, and just how fragile civilization is, and how tough it is to defend it.