Staff Pick
It took me two years to steel myself enough to read this book; I knew it was going to be grim and difficult to get through, and it was. But, McCarthy's prose is so elegant, and his story is so heartfelt, it was worth taking his blows to get this stunning story. The residual feelings from reading this 2007 Pulitzer winner will never leave you. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece. 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. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.