Although the source of the destruction isn’t revealed, it seems to have been a nuclear war.
It was interesting to compare this post-apocalyptic world to something like The Walking Dead, where they can still grow food and just need to outrun really slow-moving zombies to survive. It’s hard to blame a parent for savoring every moment he can with his child, and hoping they’ll find a better life down the road. By keeping his son alive, was he just condemning him to a joyless life of misery? Maybe the long journey symbolized his unflagging hope that there was a place in the wasted world where he and his son could carve out a decent life?Īs a parent, I found myself frequently thinking about what I would do if I were in the father’s shoes, and I concluded that I would do the same (although I never liked camping, so I wouldn’t last very long). Sometimes I wondered if the father was doing the right thing. And this is the crux of the story.Īt its heart, The Road is about the strong love between the father and the son, and the great lengths a father will go to protect his son and keep him alive in the face of terrible odds. They are wholly dependent on each other for survival. They can’t trust anyone – people have gone feral and are preying on other survivors. The man and his son have been survivors of the apocalypse for many years, and they have been reduced to pushing a shopping cart filled with their meager belongings, scouring empty houses for canned food, and sleeping in the woods in the cold, damp leaves. Nothing is alive except some human survivors, it’s perpetually cold and the sun is always behind a curtain of haze. They are in the mountains, where everything is burned out and covered with ash and sooty snow. When the story opens, “the man” and “the boy” (we never learn their names) are traveling south on a road, trying to reach the coast. That’s the great thing about a reading challenge – it can get you out of your comfort zone! I had been hesitant about reading The Road because of its subject matter and reputation, but I’m so glad I finally got over my angst. March’s challenge was to read a book by an Irish-American author in honor of Irish-American Heritage Month. I read The Road as part of the 2022 Thoughtful Reading Challenge. (This in no way affects the honesty of my reviews!) All commissions will be donated to the ALS Association. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links. The Road is Cormac McCarthy’s epic, Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a man trying to keep himself and his son alive in a bleak post-apocalyptic world.
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