The Road

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a novel about a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Fast Facts

1. Author: Cormac McCarthy
2. Genre: Post-apocalyptic Fiction
3. Publisher: Vintage Books
4. Publication Date: March 28, 2007
5. Pages: 287 pages
6. ISBN 0307265439
7. Awards/Distinctions: 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction
8. Adaptations: 2008 Film starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee
9. Setting: United States, sometime in the future

Plot Synopsis

The Road follows a father and son as they journey together for many months across a post-apocalyptic landscape some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm. The story takes place in the former United States where civilization has been destroyed (along with most life). What is left of humanity now consists largely of bands of cannibals, their prey, and refugees who scavenge for canned food or other surviving foodstuffs. Realizing that he and his young son cannot survive another winter in their present location, the man sets out with his boy across what was once the Southeastern United States with the goal of reaching the warmer southern climates and the sea.

Critical Reception

The book has received universal acclaim, earning a 90 out of 100 on the Metacritic review aggregator. The Chicago Tribune wrote: "A post-atomic apocalypse novel as we've never seen one before, a black book of wondrous paragraphs that reads as though Samuel Beckett had dared himself to outdo Harlan Ellison." A review from the New York Times stated: "The Road would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty....[It] offers nothing in the way of escape or comfort. But its fearless wisdom is more indelible than reassurance could ever be."

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