The stor
y is simple. A man and young boy (father and son) are traveling the roads of post apocalyptic America in hopes of finding warmer climes and perhaps a colony of people. The landscape is a bleak, gray, ash covered vision of a terrifying future for mankind. Dried out hulks of corpses litter the road, lay in the beds of long abandoned houses, and even sit propped on porches like "straw men set out to announce some holiday". When it's not raining or snowing, a light soot falls and covers everything. There is hardly anything in the way of food left on the planet for the remaining survivors. But people will eat, even when all other food sources have been exhausted, if you know what I mean.
y is simple. A man and young boy (father and son) are traveling the roads of post apocalyptic America in hopes of finding warmer climes and perhaps a colony of people. The landscape is a bleak, gray, ash covered vision of a terrifying future for mankind. Dried out hulks of corpses litter the road, lay in the beds of long abandoned houses, and even sit propped on porches like "straw men set out to announce some holiday". When it's not raining or snowing, a light soot falls and covers everything. There is hardly anything in the way of food left on the planet for the remaining survivors. But people will eat, even when all other food sources have been exhausted, if you know what I mean. The road for the man and the boy is treacherous, and each page is flipped in anticipation and hopes that the two will not be separated and captured by the bad people. Always the two drive for the coast. Hellish scenes pass along the road, and encounters with other survivors become more frequent and serve to crank the tension level up until it is almost unbearable.
The Road is about evil and good. So much of the book is spent describing the absolute evil that man can be and do, and yet the message of the book is clear: even in the darkest of nights, when faith seems like a cliche or a slap in the face of so much despair, the love shared between a father and son is enough to create hope for the future. And hope for humanity.
The Road is sad and harsh. And it does not shy away from the brutal capabilities of humankind. But it is so beautifully written and so well paced that I could not put it down. I've never read a book as fast as I read this one, and it will probably be a long time before I do so again.
The Road is the 2006 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. It is being adapted to film and is due out sometime in the fall of 2009.
The Road is the 2006 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. It is being adapted to film and is due out sometime in the fall of 2009.
Kirk Out.
