a book

The Road

Name: The Road
Rating: 5 (24 reviews)
Author: Cormac McCarthy
ISBN: 9780307387899

Cormac McCarthy · 2006 · 287 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Look for Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Passenger, coming October '22.

recommended by 24 people

sourced from public statements

Charlize Theron
“It changed my life.”↗
Ryan Holiday
“A profound depiction of struggle, sacrifice, and love that moved Holiday to tears upon rereading.”↗
Joel McHale
“No novel has ever captured the love a parent has for his child better than this book.”↗
Amelia Boone
“@realdumbrunner That book wrecked me.”↗
Nick Cave
“I love that book. It’s clever, that book, because the environmental that they’re living in is so unremittingly pessimistic that he’s able to weave this extraordinarily sentimental story about the love between father and son and completely get away with it. The end speech that the dying father gives his son about carrying the fire … if you take that out of context it reads completely differently.”↗
Michael J. Fox
“It’s kind of surprising for someone who’s a self-described optimist to love this apocalyptic road story so much. But McCarthy captures the step-in-front-of-a-train, protect-at-all-costs mind-set of a father and transfers it to the starkest possible context.”↗
Isabel Allende
“Among the thousands of apocalyptic futuristic novels in existence, this one stands out as the most depressing. Yet it is so beautifully crafted that I have read it three times. In McCarthy’s tale, the love of a father for his son sheds the only light in the midst of supreme horror and darkness. What a writer!”↗
Mark Pellegrino
“@Island_Aum I LOVE that book... (I love all father son stories) the dad is amazing in that book. Very scary though. Beware.”↗
John Lilly
“@aweissman Incredible, incredible book. One of my top 5 ever. His other stuff is amazing as well.”↗
Hugh Acheson
“@KevinDistasio @WillieNelson Cormac Mccarthy's post-apocalyptic laugh-out-loud fun book.”↗
Oprah Winfrey
Lex Fridman
James Altucher
Jocko Willink
Aubrey Marcus
Anna Kendrick
Paul Cooper
Greg Garrett
Elliot Ackerman
James Miller
Stacey Peebles
David Perell
Sam Hinkie
Mark Boyle