The Road

In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, some unnamed disaster, presumably a nuclear holocaust, has rendered the world a lifeless, ashen landscape. No animals or vegetation have appeared to survive and relatively few humans roam the land. The book follows two such survivors, a man and his son, as they follow the road south to the coast, which serves as their ray of hope for survival. Along the way, they scrounge for food and try to avoid roaming bands of cannibals who are themselves trying to survive. It is a love story between father and son, as the father tries to protect his son from the harsh realities they encounter. It is also a story of what happens to humanity when faced with scarcity and chaos. This book has been up for numerous awards and was unanimously liked by my book club (an unusual event in itself).