The Road

By Cormac McCarthy

I've long been a fan of the Post-Apocalyptic genre. Though I've mostly stuck to television shows, I've decided to branch out and start reading PA books. I listen to The Signal (a Firefly podcast) and they had a promo for a post-apocalyptic podcast called Through The Aftermath. They talk about all different media in the PA genre.

They had an episode about the book The Road. I had heard a little bit about the story (mostly negative) as it got a lot of press for being an Oprah book. The big complaint that I heard? The punctuation was missing and the dialogue isn't labeled making it hard to follow along. I decided to give it a shot.

I really enjoyed this book. The premise; the world ended by nuclear destruction an undetermined number of years ago. There are few survivors. The story follows a father and his son. The son was born after the bombs went off. He's maybe 8? 10? It never says. There is little left in the United States, fires burn continuously, everyone left survives by scavenging. We follow the pair as they travel the road (highways) southbound. Watching as the two interact with each other and share in their highs and lows depending on what they encounter along the road.

If you are looking for a happy story this is not the story for you. In fact I'm guessing that there are few if any PA books that you can really call upbeat and happy. Being only the 2nd PA book I've really read I don't know this for sure.

I liked how the book went into detail about how the father and son scavenged for food, repaired what little they had, and worried about the end. As for the complaint's that I read. The only punctuation that I noticed missing were the apostrophes in contractions. As for the dialogue? I was able to follow along with who was speaking no problem. This was a gripping story that will be released as a movie near the end of 2009.