The Road

Synopsis: A man and his young son traverse a blasted American landscape, covered with "the ashes of the late world." The man can still remember the time before. The boy knows only this time. There is nothing for them but survival — they are "each other's world entire" — and the precious last vestiges of their own humanity. At once brutal and tender, despairing and rashly hopeful, spare of language and profoundly moving, The Road is a fierce and haunting meditation on the tenuous divide between civilization and savagery, and the essential, sometimes terrifying power of filial love. It is a masterpiece.

Review: It doesn't get much bleaker than this, a truly tragic tale of a man and his son trying to find their way to the coast in post apocalyptic America (well, the country's not actually named but I took it to be America because of one or two slight references, though it could be anywhere). The writing has been pared to the bone, there is hardly any dialogue and in that respect it felt rather like reading Hemingway. There are no chapters, just fairly short paragraphs of either description or dialogue, every word is weighed and measured. The man and the boy exchange a few short sentences every now and then, the boy seeking understanding or comfort and the man trying to reassure and instill hope or else relaying simple instructions.

But for all that it's not overly descriptive or wordy, it's so beautifully written that you can clearly see that ash ridden, bleak and desolate landscape and feel the desperation of the man and boy. When you think about a landscape devoid of animals, devoid even of rats to feed on corpses, devoid of plant life and sunlight it's utterly unendurable, and the writer makes you feel the loss of these things yourself as you read.

We're not told why this catastrophe happened, which makes it all a bit more terrifying because when a reason is given you can usually find a way of persuading yourself that the chances of it really happening are so slim as to be negligible. We just know that everything, and practically everyone, is dead, and the world has been thrown into perpetual winter.

It felt right that there weren't any chapters, there was nothing to break the spell, no obvious resting places. I had to tear myself away from the book from time to time, in order to try and lighten my mood, but really, from the moment I read that their aim was to find their way to the coast, I was so anxious that they should get there that I just kept reading on and on.

Although it's not what you'd call an action-packed book, there are some pretty horrific scenes, and also some times when their relentless slow trudge across the scorched earth turns into a desperate flight for survival. There are only a few people left on earth, how many is not known, but among them are some pretty terrifying people, people who will do everything and anything to ensure their survival. People with nothing to lose.

All you are hoping for, is that the man and the boy reach the coast and some sort of safety, you celebrate every small piece of good fortune that comes their way and you feel fear whenever they see or meet anyone on the road.I can see that not everybody would like it, it's pretty harrowing stuff. There isn't any light relief or jokes (I imagine they're dead like everything else) but it's compelling and powerful.

I was truly terrified by it, an incredible piece of writing.