is a graduate student at Berkeley, studying the geography of an area in the mountains, somewhere in California. He is sometimes referred to in the book as "The Last American." Ish becomes the leader of the community, aka "the tribe", he believes due to his intellect. His nickname, Ish, is an obvious reference to Ishi, the "last Wild Indian." Ish is also the word for "man" in Hebrew. Emma (Em) is a woman who Isherwood meets in his hometown. The author may have been taking a chance with this character, who is, at least partially, African-American, while Isherwood is white; when the book was written, interracial marriages were heavily discouraged in American society. Isherwood does marry her, and race isn't important to the couple's relationship. Em ("mother" in Hebrew) becomes the community's mother, letting it grow as it will, but stepping in to help when no one else is filling the leadership role. She is the adult while others panic, and Ish thinks of her as the "Mother of Nations". In her old age, she disagrees with Ish about a request by a smaller community, known as the Others, to join the Tribe. Ish initially opposes the idea, but Em supports it, and Ish changes his mind. Ezra meets Emma and Ish while traveling through Berkeley, he was a former liquor salesman and immigrant from Yorkshire, England. They liked him, but feared the complications of a love triangle, so they encouraged him to leave. He returned with Molly and Jean, his wives. Ish values Ezra as a good judge of people, saying "Ezra knew people, Ezra liked people." George is a carpenter by trade. George is not intellectually intelligent but becomes a Jack-of-all-trades able to build, repair or maintain the limited infrastructure of the small community. Evie is a "half grown girl" who Ezra found living "in squalor and solitude." She appears to have a mental illness, and the others all care and provide for her. Evie grows into an attractive young woman but the tribe has a rule, that as the children grow no one will marry her—she wouldn't understand, and her mental condition could possibly be hereditary. Joey is the youngest son of Ish and Em. Of all the children in the Tribe, he is the only one that truly understands the academic skills that Ish tries to teach — geometry, reading, geography. He dies during the typhoid