Review — The Road by Cormac McCarthy

What is life like when it is reduced to practically nothing? That is the question addressed by Cormac McCarthy in his story The Road.

The book takes place in an America which has been ravaged by fires. The cause is not spoken about, they are just a fact. The fires have left a barren landscape, devoid of life. Wildlife, plants, and human society, all gone. A man and his son walk through this landscape, following the road. We don’t know where they have come from. We only know that they are heading for the coast, although why they are doing so is not clear.

This is a journey of survival, they must do it. But undertaking a walk like this, when you don’t have suitable clothes or boots, shelter or access to food and water is tough. Neither do you have money and if you did there is nothing to buy and no one to buy it from. Perhaps hardest of all, you can trust no one. In these dire circumstances, the few surviving people have mainly resorted to violence and brutality as the way to stay alive.

So this is an incredibly bleak book. It depicts a world none of us would want to inhabit. But given the current response to the multiple crises facing humanity, it’s easy to extrapolate from the deadly wildfires across the world into the world of The Road. Fiction is always at its most poignant when the imagined world sits dangerously close to our own.

This is a world of danger, from a ruined and polluted environment and also from violent and ruthless people. But predominantly, it is a world of irritation, boredom, hunger, fear and rain. Where can I get food and water from? Will my boots last out? How can I stay dry? Is there someone around the next bend? Every now and then, good luck comes their way. Mostly, it doesn’t.

Don’t pick up The Road and expect to find a manual for surviving the apocalypse, it’s not that book. Neither does it analyse the disaster and offer ways to avoid it. It’s not that book either. The Road is a day-to-day account of what life is like when it is barely life at all. It’s a dream from which you awake scared to your stomach. It’s a fleeting vision. It’s a reminder that living at the height of modernity is a privilege that may be withdrawn at any time.

The Road is simple, gripping and scary. Its Pulitzer Prize is richly deserved.