The Road

• Genre: PostApoc
• Published: 2006
• Author: Cormac McCarthy
• Pages: 256
• ISBN#: 978-0330447553
• Reviewed by: CyberPunkFuture on Wed 7 Nov 07

Official Blurb:
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

Review:
Well, if you listen to the reviews and critics, this is the best book you'll ever read. EVER. It's so good that if everyone on the planet would just read it, war would cease, famine would disappear, and paradise everlasting would reign. It made Oprah's Booklist. Apparently, it even won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. Which is why I seldom listen to what a critic has to say, but I digress...

I'll admit that the book was in fact good if you are looking for a tale of gritty, harsh, post-apocalyptic survival. Set in modern or very near future United States, the country has become an ashen desolate wasteland, and we're inclined to believe the rest of the world may be the same. Most life is gone: no animals, little vegetation that isn't charred, and few remaining humans that struggle to survive. It's very reminiscent of nuclear winter, though it's never explicitly stated what caused the destruction. The only clue is in one of the father's flashbacks, he mentions a 'long shear of light and a series of low concussions' which stops the clocks and kills the power, suggesting to me a nuclear weapon.

The book follows two people, a father and son. Neither are ever named. Father lived through the apocalypse, whereas the Boy was only very little, perhaps newborn when it occurred. We follow them as they trek from somewhere inland towards the east coast. They are trying to escape the harsh winter conditions of wherever they started, and give themselves reason to continue on. They push a shopping cart filled with items of survival that they have scrounged and a pistol with two bullets, which Father saves at all cost to use on them should the need arise. Father is obviously sick with something as he occasionally coughs up blood.

The only thing of meaning to them each other. The Father makes it clear that he will do everything and anything to ensure the Boy's survival. Boy, having never known much of the former world, is very innocent and naive. He becomes a point of goodness in a world that no longer knows anything other that harsh Darwinian survival. Boy seems to care what happens to other travelers, whereas Father drives all others away because he must in order to protect the Boy.

So now we get on to my biggest (and really only) gripe about the book, and that's McCarthy's style of writing. Rather than narrating the dialog as most stories do, he instead just writes the dialog out. Let me give an example, a conversation between myself and Other Person.

Normal: "Hello." said CPF, as he waved. "Hi", returned Other Person. "How's your day?" inquired CPF. Other person shrugged, "Good."

In The Road: Hello. Hi. How's your day? Good.

I'll grant that this kind of minimalist writing helps to invoke a sense of immediateness and bleakness and he captures the constant moment-to-moment pace of survival in a barren world. But it really makes things hard to follow sometimes. Quotation marks are not scary, they are there for a reason. Also, he sometimes fills entire pages with these short one-line dialogs, so even if you aren't a fast reader, you be skimming through dozens of pages in no time with this book.

What I liked:
- Very well done post-apocalypse survival drama. It's harsh, it's brutal
- Yet at the same time, the author weaves in a good story about love and compassion
- Some rather horrific and brutal scenes of, well, survival....


What I didn't like:
- The short sentences. The choppiness. The lack of narrated dialog.
- [Potential Spoiler] Father dies, but Boy lives. Bah. If you sell me on a world of harsh survival in a wasteland, at least be brave enough to kill all your characters and not have one be miraculously saved at the last moment. It's cliche.

Final Scoring:

Personal Recommendation: All complaining aside (since it's just personal opinion anyway), I do really recommend this book.

Availablity:
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