Thursday, March 8, 2007

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).

3 comments:

Shuttsie said...

Are books about post-apocalyptic wastelands the new chick lit? This is the second book we've featured in this genre. Also does anyone out there remember the Fire Brats series? When I was in Junior High there was a very short lived series of books about two teenagers surviving a nuclear blast and trying to get to California where things were supposedly better. Wouldn't you love to see the proposal on those?

Anonymous said...

Seems like there are always teen books about surviving the apocalypse. When I worked at the Bulletin I reviewed a book called The Big Empty by J.B. Stephens that was part of a planned series on kids surviving a devestating, Stephen King's The Stand-like virus. I'm interested that all your book club members liked The Road -- I read a great review of it that said what a beautiful and important book it was, and it still left me not wanting to read something that was so depressing. Guess that's just me!

Angie said...

Yes, I had read all the glowing reviews and was not interested in reading The Road at all and was actually not very happy my book club picked it. I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as the other members, but it was still worth reading.