The Road (A Book Review)

Cormac McCarthy, The Road, 2006 (unabridged audio book, 6 hours 40 minutes)

The Road grabbed my attention for the very beginning. A father and a son are traveling by foot down the road. He’s pushing a cart. As I’d not read the cover (I listened to the book), I wondered, “Are they homeless?” Slowly details begin to emerge about this post-apocalyptic world. They’re heading south, trying to beat the winter, trying to reach the sea. The world is dark and dead. Even at midday, the sky is gray and the air filled with ash. They cover their mouths with cloth, moving on, keeping a constant outlook for trouble. The road is a dangerous place and there are those who have resorted to cannibalism to survive. When someone comes along on the road or when they make their camp at night, they hid. Danger is never far away.

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All the boy has ever known is this nightmare. His dad tells him stories of the way things were and through his dreams we learn of his love for his wife, the boy’s mother. The nightmare started in the early morning hours of night. There was a brilliant flash and the father got up and ran a tub full of water as the power went out. We never learn of the war or the conflict, just the aftermath. The father tries to instill into the boy his values. They are the good guys, he tells his son. But as they travel on, the boy questions whether or not they are the good guys. They’ve not resorted to cannibalism, scrounging for leftovers, mostly canned food, from the former world. But they’ve had to fight to keep what is there and haven’t been able to help anyone else. They finally make it to the sea. (I also listened to the last hour of this book sitting on the beach!) Their journey done, the dad dies. He’d been coughing and not well throughout the book and there’s been a sense of urgency in him to teach his son what he needs to know to go on. The book ends with the boy being adopted by another family. Interestingly, the boy is told that they’ll have to leave the road for safety.

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This book gives the reader a lot to ponder. The question of suicide is raised, an option chosen by the boy’s mother. They were down to three bullets in his pistol and she wanted her husband to take them all out, to save them from the horrors of the world. But the father can’t do it. Yet, when danger arises and the father finds that he must leave his son behind to search for food, he leaves the pistol with the boy, having instructed him how to shoot himself in the mouth. But that seems a necessary precaution to protect the boy from the horrors of the world. The father has the will to live even though there is a question about what the future will look like. Everything is dead, trees and streams and rivers. What will be left when there is nothing else to salvage? Why keep on living when the odds are stacked against you? There is also the question of God. When the son is asleep, the father cries out in agony. Is he crying out to God and if so, does God hear? The narrative allows the reader to ponder such questions.

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There is no doubt that the father loves his son and is willing to sacrifice for him. When he finds a treat, such as packaged drink mix, he insists the boy enjoy it. In this dark world, little things are special. When they find a bunker with lots of canned food, they have a feast and the father heats water and gives his son a bath in a tub, a luxury the boy has never experienced. There is something special about the boy. The father keeps telling him he’s carrying the fire and despite such a gloomy world, it seems to be true for goodness seems to flow from the boy.

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It is interesting that McCarthy wrote the book without names. The boy and the father are nameless. A name is given to only one person whom they meet, Eli, and sickly old man who is kind of a philosopher. But the man admits that Eli isn’t his real name. In addition, the man and boy are traveling though a nameless world. The descriptions of the journey had me thinking they’re traveling though the Appalachian Mountains and down toward the coast. Throughout the book, the father lays out pieces of an old map, trying to figure out where they are located. But the location is kept from the reader, leaving us to wonder.

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I also found myself wondering about the timeline from the beginning of the post-apocalyptic world. The boy was born after the destruction. The author provides clues that it’s been a while since the world changed. Once, the father looks up on a ridge, thinking of the cults that had existed along the hilltops, but are no longer present. Also, I found myself wondering about the leaves they sleep and hid in, when the trees are all dead. Or, the apples the father finds under the dead fruit trees. Were these trees still alive until the recent season or were these apples there from before the new world began? The latter doesn’t seem possible. Time and location are left vague.

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I enjoyed this book. Although there are horrific elements in it, The Road has given me much to ponder.