Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition (Initial Situation)
Just Another Normal* Day
*Is there such a thing as "normal" when you live under constant threat of being bombed?
Probably not, but in any case, the six individuals at the center of this story have been wearily enduring air raid sirens and preparations for attack for some time when we first meet them. In fact, on the day the story opens (August 6, 1945), there was a false alarm, and the "all clear" rang out at around 8 a.m. So, it seems just like another typical** day in wartime Hiroshima…
**See above: we're playing fast and loose with the terms "normal" and "typical."
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
Anything But Just A Normal Day
However, just fifteen minutes after the "all clear" sounded, the Enola Gay drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Mr. Tanimoto, who had been helping a friend move some stuff out to the suburbs, is far enough away from the center of the blast that he has time to take cover behind a rock after seeing a flash, which protects him when the physical concussion reachs him.
Miss Sasaki ends up buried beneath rubble and books in her office.
Mrs. Nakamura ends up under some rubble, but gets herself out pretty quickly. Her children are harder to extricate, but she manages.
Dr. Fujii's house falls into the river (!), trapping him between some beams (!!), but he somehow managed to extricate himself (!!!).
Dr. Sasaki, who was on his way to deliver some blood when the bomb dropped, is miraculously positioned in the building such that he didn't get injured (he lost his glasses, though).
Finally, Father Kleinsorge, who had been chilling in his undies on his bed when the blast happened, ends up with lots of small cuts and wandering outside in his tighty-whiteys.
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
And Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Worse…
Even though the blast was devastating enough, the aftermath (which takes up the majority of the book) is fairly epic as well. Fires break out all over the city, presumably because of physical damage to gas lines. As people attempt to seek help and/or evacuate the destroyed areas, they have to navigate around the fires breaking out everywhere. The fires are kind of like insult to injury at this point.
Mr. Tanimoto gets busy helping the wounded, which includes ferrying people back and forth between the evacuation zone in Asano Park and other places (particularly when fire reaches the park).
Dr. Sasaki ends up working for 19 hours straight at the Red Cross Hospital before trying to catch a nap (the patients catch him, though, and make him return to work—and he ends up working three days straight without more than that hour of sleep).
Mrs. Nakamura ends up in Asano Park with her children and is later transferred to a Catholic novitiate in the suburbs with the assistance of Father Kleinsorge—who has also ended up in Asano Park and is trying to help, despite being wounded himself. Father Kleinsorge also ends up at the novitiate.
Dr. Fujii, who is too injured himself to tend much to the wounded, ends up heading out to the 'burbs—first to his parents' house and then to the house of a friend named Mr. Okuma.
Miss Sasaki fares the worst of this group of six, it seems, in the immediate bomb aftermath; she is rescued from the rubble, but her leg is very badly broken, and she is left outside in all the elements (under a makeshift lean-to) for two days.
Falling Action
The Road to Recovery?
The initial crisis period passed, and people in Hiroshima begin to pick up the pieces of their lives. Miss Sasaki endures several different hospitals and doctors who tried to help her with her leg before ending up at the Red Cross with Dr. Sasaki (no relation). Also, a friend connects her with Father Kleinsorge, who helps brighten her spirits despite her misfortunes.
Father Kleinsorge, Mrs. Nakamura, and Mr. Tanimoto suffer from radiation sickness in varying degrees, but all attempt to move on with and rebuild their lives. Father Kleinsorge ends up being admitted to the hospital in Tokyo for several months.
Meanwhile (in a stroke of supremely bad luck) the house where Dr. Fujii is staying washes away during a period of heavy flooding. Yeah, that's two of Dr. Fujii's houses that wash away. He ends up buying a clinic in Kaitaichi and setting up a practice there.
Mrs. Nakamura and her children are too poor to seek medical help, but resting seems to help them slowly recover.
Father Kleinsorge and Mr. Tanimoto (who have had to take some time off to rest elsewhere) end up returning to Hiroshima and moving toward rebuilding their churches.
Dr. Sasaki continues to work at the Red Cross.
Resolution (Denouement)
Aftermath, Part Deux
Forty years after the original text, Hersey added a whole extra chapter detailing the fates of these six individuals.
Mrs. Nakamura struggles with health problems and poverty for a long time, but eventually she finds a good job and receives government health benefits targeting victims of the blast. She ends up retiring in relative comfort and enjoying life.
Dr. Sasaki eventually leaves the Red Cross Hospital and starts a successful private clinic in Mukaihara. During a medical exam years later, doctors discover a mass on his lung, leading to the removal of that organ. He survives all that and, as a result of that experience and then the death of his wife, he throws himself even more fully into helping his patients.
Father Kleinsorge thrives career-wise in the years that followed, but his health continues to be spotty. He is thrilled when the opportunity to become a Japanese citizen presents itself, and he changes his name to Father Makoto Takakura. Along the way, he acquires a cook/faithful companion, Satsue Yoshiki, who is like a mother/daughter to him. She is with him when he finally passes away after numerous health problems.
Miss Sasaki ultimately ends up doing really well, despite several challenges—for example, her busted leg, her being responsible for her younger siblings after her parents' deaths, and the fact that her fiancé abandons her because of her injuries (and presumably also because he's a dirtbag).
She eventually ends up entering the convent and taking vows. She serves as director of a home for the elderly called the Garden of St. Joseph for twenty years, traveling extensively in Europe, and spends two years as Mother Superior at the Misasa convent where she originally trained. Afterwards, she serves as superintendent of the women's dormitory at the music school her brother attended.
Dr. Fujii, who had always been pretty fun-loving, stays that way for a long time. He ends up visiting the States to help support some women who are getting plastic surgery for their bomb-related scars. Unfortunately, he ends up (accidentally, it seems) almost suffocating from leaving a gas heater on in his bedroom. He survives, but just when he is assumed to be on the mend, he falls into a vegetative state and lives like that for eleven years before finally passing away.
Finally, Mr. Tanimoto ends up going to the States several times to raise money for the people affected by the bomb and to rebuild his church. He is an enthusiastic proponent of peacekeeping and anti-nuclear efforts.