The Road
A father and son walk through a burned, lifeless America, carrying the fire of their bond, in McCarthy's stark Pulitzer-winning novel.
Cormac McCarthy strips his story to essentials: a father and his young son push a cart south through a gray, ash-covered America after an unnamed catastrophe has killed almost everything. They scavenge, hide from other survivors, and hold onto what the father calls carrying the fire. Written in stark, pared-down prose, the Pulitzer-winning novel is bleak and tender at once, a meditation on love and endurance at the end of the world.
Recommended by 2 People
George Monbiot
If I were to compile an environmental reading list for anyone, the first book I would give them to read would be The Road because that is the Ground Zero of environmentalism. It imagines the extreme scenario of losing everything. The consequences are conveyed with McCarthy’s brilliant sparseness and starkness, and his total refusal to offer hope where there is no hope.
Interview · September 2017
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