Amazon.com Review Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
The Road is now a major motion picture based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, starring Academy Award-nominee Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Enjoy these images from the film, and click the thumbnails to see larger images.
Product Description NATIONAL BESTSELLER
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER National Book Critic's Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington Post
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 foodâand 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.
perhaps the greatest work of art I've ever encounteredAugust 29, 2010 DC gal 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Art is different from entertainment because art changes you, and this book affected me more deeply than any piece of art I've ever encountered. Not that I think it's perfect -- I see many flaws. But they don't matter. It accomplished its mission.
Cormac McCarthy has written the definitive literary depiction of the power of love. Although they were cold, dirty, starving, frightened, I was surprised to find myself at one point envying them, for they were nurtured from within by the power of love. Especially the father, as it's the nature of the parent-child relationship that the parent gives and the child receives. CM is saying, that when all hope is gone, love remains.
And he's done it so convincingly that during the days I was reading this book, when I had occasion to throw away some food, I found myself thinking "I wish I could give it to them." In some part of my mind, I felt convinced that these people really existed. That was how completely I entered into their world.
Caution: spoilers ahead!!
I have never cried so hard at any death in a movie or book. It started with the line: "when he lay down he knew that he could go no further and that this was the place where he would die. The boy sat watching him, his eyes welling. Oh Papa, he said."
I'm crying for the loss to the man, who showed so much courage, self-denial, sheer grit, and boundless love. We want to see that kind of all-out effort succeed and be rewarded, but life isn't like that. We know the horror the man must feel in leaving his son alone in that world, with nothing but a half a tin of peaches to sustain him. In his final gesture of love, the man declines the peaches and tells his son to save them for him -- for tomorrow, when he knows he'll be gone.
I'm crying for the loss to the skinny, starving boy, who has lost his smart, determined, vigilant and tender father -- the only thing standing between him and a horrific future as a catamite or cannibal's dinner.
And I'm crying for the loss to myself of the most inspiring character in the fiction world: a man with the strength to keep going, keep walking, keep searching, when almost all others have given up (like his wife) or given in to their basest instincts (the roadagents).
"The Road" left me knowing that love is all that matters, and determined to live my life out of that knowledge. I want to give up living from my mind and start living from my heart. Perhaps I will adopt a child. The story is more powerful than a thousand sermons.
Cormac McCarthy strips away all the superfluous stuff that has nothing to do with love. We don't know whether the man preferred to go out for sushi or steak, jazz music or country. Was he a lawyer, salesman or mechanic? None of that is essential to who he is. We don't need him to crack jokes or say profound things. All we know of him is what he does, and that's plenty. We see him putting his son's welfare first, over and over again. When they are hiding from the cannibals, he considers running to draw them away from the boy. That he himself will end up in that basement doesn't even figure in his decision not to do it -- only that he doesn't think it will work. His own pain weighs nothing when compared to his motivation to save the boy.
As for those who fault the man for not helping strangers -- I don't agree. Any morsel of food given to strangers is taken from the mouth of his son, or lessens his own chance to stay alive long enough to get his son south. He had to choose and he chose his son.
So the story had a deep emotional impact on me. But in addition, it is a story of ideas. How low can man go? What darkness beats in the heart of men, only thinly veiled by our (currently) abundant society? At what point is life no longer worth living? At what point should the strong drive for self-preservation be ignored, if it means committing atrocities on others? And lastly, to what extent am I taking life's current luxuries and comforts for granted?
I'm sure many a reader of "The Road" has collapsed into bed after a night of reading and felt immense gratitude for their cozy bedroom, their clean sheets, their fridge and a tasty midnight snack.
Things that troubled me about the story: I wanted them to stay longer at the bunker. At least to make full use of those provisions and take the time to fatten up and rest before heading on. They could've hauled a load of groceries off a mile or two and pigged out for a few weeks before coming back for more. The more weight they put on, the less crucial it would be to find fresh provisions when they finally did leave.
I wanted to see him make a major effort to find a way to disguise the trap-door to the bunker. It had gone undiscovered for almost ten years, if it was well hidden perhaps it could go undiscovered for at least a few more months.
Setting off the flare gun was irresponsible. They wasted a flare and announced their position, perhaps drawing the thief.
But those are minor quibbles. After finishing "The Road," I felt profoundly blessed, and cleansed from within from the tears shed. I knew I was in the presence of greatness. Cormac McCarthy has given mankind an immense gift, for which I paid only $7.99. Thank for Cormac McCarthy.
Depressing With No Plot or StoryAugust 27, 2010 Katrina Bradley(Arkansas) 0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I almost gave up on this book several times because the road never went anywhere but deeper into depression. This was a terrible book with almost no plot and no good ending. By good ending I mean a twist or revelation or something to make you go "Wow, what a great ending!". I'm sorry I wasted my time finishing this one.
From a Writer's PerspectiveAugust 24, 2010 Jerry Cordato Cormac McCarthy's purpose in writing this book is to show the boundless love that the Man shows toward his son, and that the Boy shows toward his father. There isn't a better way to display this love than to set the story in a place where there is no love. The setting, a gray, burned, barren, post-apocalyptic America, accentuates the bond between the two characters. And in doing this, it attaches the reader all the more to the two characters. The fact that we meet hardly any other characters, beside the Man and the Boy, causes us to become emotionally attached to only the Man and the Boy. This shows McCarthy's incredible talent in going to great ends to bring as as close to the characters as possible, especially the Man.
McCarthy's writing style is astounding. Instead of using as many descriptive adjectives as possible to paint a picture in our minds, he uses nouns and verbs to carry the story along. It surprised me when I wasn't board, despite the fact that very little actually happened. McCarthy's style moved the story along so that I couldn't put it down. This, along with the fact that we are so connected with the characters, makes the book not only suspenseful, but a page-turner.
Another aspect that adds to the books suspense, is it's vagueness. The apocalypse is only briefly mentioned in one short paragraph. What happened to the Wife is barely alluded to. All of this together creates the aura of mystery, something that McCarthy obviously wanted.
McCarthy develops the bleak world in which the story takes place amazingly. This too adds to the suspense. Anything is apt to happen, and we never know what it will be like. But this could also be a deterrent to some readers. The book's air is extremely depressing sad. It would be difficult to recommend this book to anyone because of it.
But the book is simply astounding for what it's purpose is, though, and I would recommend the book because of this, and the amazing style in which McCarthy tells the story. I would rank Cormac McCarthy as one of the best authors I've read.
I rank this book four and a half stars only because of "The Road"s depressing content, and not everyone would enjoy it. Yet to those who will brave the hostile world the author was willing to paint to accomplish his purposes, this will be a memorable read, if only for McCarthy's deft writing style and the depth to his work.
this book made endless winter in my mind.August 24, 2010 Kathy Jahn 1 out of 4 found this review helpful
i APPLAUDED when the father died. i didnt care at the least what happened to the little boy, and apparently neither did the author, because he never even felt like writing about it. the cannabals just, ate, raped, and kille dhim i guess.
the whole book was sooooo borring. there was no explanation for why the world had ended, or anything.
the same converstaions were repeated throughout the whole story.
talk to me
i am
no you arent
yes i am
i dont believe you
im talking to you now
ok
ok?
ok, just ok
ok what?
just ok
ok
ok.
alright?
ok
no, alright
umm, alright.
i mean seriously, its like the author isnt even trying, the whole story is them walking on the street, they meet a random guy, they shoot him in the head. they walk through a town and the guy gets shot through the leg by random people. then he kills them with a flaregun
then they walk some more
and some more
and more
and they walk
walk....
walk......walk
they eat some beans. the father coughs alot.
the boy cries alot.
hey papa
what
was this a good book
no way
no way?
yeah, it was a waste of paper
whats paper
stuff
i dont know
ok
alright
ok
ok
ok?
YES FRIG OK!!!
alright
alright then
fine
fine
fine?
yeah fine
ok
o.....father shoots himself. (reader burns book to help stay warm after the world ends)
A long, agonizing walk towards deathAugust 20, 2010 Antonio Santamaria(Lakewood, CA United States) 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
"The Road" is an exercise in bleakness, punctuated by a bit of luck here and there, but generally, a dead, gray story of a world destroyed.
As the two main characters struggle to survive, they get desperate and then get lucky, only to become deperate again, their only hope is that they stay together.
One survives, but we never know what happens to that character. He is simply found by some people. The woman talks to him about God, but he talks to his partner in their long tortuous journey, his Dad.
All in all, a completely unremarkable read I will soon forget.
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
