Review: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

I started reading The Road soon after I picked it up at Fountain Bookstore while waiting for some cousins to arrive for dinner at a local restaurant, and I really had a hard time putting it down.

Cormac McCarthy has a real skill at describing nature, especially desolate nature. And so this book, which is set in the US after some horrible armageddon, an apocalypse, is full of rich, but bleak, details on what life and nature might be like if some horrible catastrophe wipes out the entire country.

I won’t spoil the ending, but the main of the book is about a father and son who struggle to survive and travel along the roads towards some possible salvation or sanctuary after some horrible attack or accident occurs. Man has turned cannibal after the accident since almost all life has been killed, and so every single step is a struggle, every single step is one step closer to possible death, through violence or starvation.

This is not a chirpy, happy-go-lucky book. But if you want a serious look at the human will to survive, then this is exactly what you need.