Cormac McCarthy is probably more widely known in recent times for his book made into movie: No Country For Old Men.
The Road is a little different. A man and a boy walk east to west through America in a post apocalyptic world where all we know has burned, melted, been plundered, raped, eaten or committed suicide. So we are not talking jaunty tale of father and son at one with wildlife here.
Instead this is a world of mankinds possible future that does not preach or shout of our failings in the here and now. It just tells a very real story of what the future may hold. It is despairing and at times hard to read. Not from McCormack’s no fuss literary style but the sheer reality that is conveyed. At other times one man’s love for his child and the innocence of that child shine through the endless realm of dark skies and shifting oceans of ash.
If there is one fault in this story it is the need to make what is essentially a short story into a novel to make it commercially viable.
But apart from that this is the sort of story that should be read at schools. It resonates in the same way Lord of the Flies and Walkabout did as a life lesson that stays with the emerging mind.
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