The Road (Oprah's Book Club) | 
 enlarge | Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Vintage Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1523 reviews
Sales Rank: 73
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 287
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307387895
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307387899
ASIN: 0307387895
Publication Date: March 28, 2007
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane
 Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
Product Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER
National Book Critic's Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Notable Book
One of the Best Books of the Year
The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington Post
The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 READ THIS BOOK August 29, 2008
This is a hard book for me to describe. It is the first novel that I have ever read by Cormac McCarthy and, perhaps, will be the only one I ever read. The Road is by turns hopeful, bleak, devestating, horrifying and... Wll, just nearly impossible to put down. From the opening scene in the unnamed fathers nighmare to the closing scenes it held my attention like few other novels have in recent years.
I cannot recommend this book enough. Read it, I believe you will not be disappointed.
 Over my head August 27, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I read it. But being a post-apocalyptic fan, this story felt short. The relationship between the father and the son was endearing, but the simplicity of the story which most people seemed to enjoy was actually what I enjoyed the least. It felt like I was watching an incredibly slow movie that would end up getting an Oscar.
Everyone is entitled to they're own opinion, but for post-apoc fans, I don't think you'll dig this one too much. But hey I might be wrong. I def was annoyed by the language throughout the whole book. But then again I didn't see what the big deal was abt. No Country for Old men either, so gauge this review on that.
In the midst of desolation and despair can good survive? August 27, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
THE ROAD is a brutal examination of what awaits mankind when the ultimate disaster strikes. A man and his son try to survive in the desolate wasteland the Earth has become; no explanation is given for this apocalypse, but the only survivors of it appear to be human. As the unnamed pair head south in the hopes of finding something other than the impending death winter will bring in the North, they confront what humanity has devolved into, wild packs that prey upon others for their own survival. Armed with a gun that has few bullets, the man uses his wits and a feral sense of survival to keep his son from falling prey to the elements and others. He finds himself hampered by his son's will to believe that he and his father are "good guys" searching for others like themselves, and when the situation class for drastic action, the boy is, in a way, humanity's last hope; the one thing keeping his father from descending to the level of the others they have encountered. McCarthy has succeeded in creating a realistic endpoint, the why and how are not important, it just is. The barren landscapes and the occasional breaks from danger that take place only continue to build the feelings of tension until the conclusion is reached, leaving this reader breathless. McCarthy's work is one of genius, an examination of how fragile our society is and it is filled with a sense of despair and wonder that few novels can hope to create.
Vivid, engaging and subliminal August 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Did you know McCarthy wrote 'No Country For Old Men'?
I was really surprised at the depth of the movie, but didn't know it was based on McCarthy's book until I started reading 'The Road'. Well, this changed the way I approached his book.
'The Road' is a very vivid, very engaging and at the same time very subliminal read.
It's a story of two survivors (of a mere handful) from a nuclear obliteration. They, a man and a child (McCarthy never names them in the book, or their ages) make their way to the Gulf Coast while at the same time battling their fears, the utter desolation, the human savagery (apparently all others have turned to cannibalism with no other food in sight) and the unknown that lays ahead.
In the midst of painting this environment, McCarthy explores the inner struggles of each of the two characters and make for a good case of what makes a man human and what makes him a savage. The book is written with exceptional clarity, the dialog is kept simple yet very meaningful.
I recommend it and if you haven't seen 'No Country For Old Men', put it on your to-view list.
by Simon Cleveland
Gray and heartbreaking August 25, 2008
The novel is about the despair and hope againgst knowing better of a father that wants to save his child in a world that has lost life and above all, it's civilization. There's hardly any indication of what caused this situation (probably a nuclear war) but that's not important. The description of the scenery is breathtaking. The world is all gray and covered in mist, with ashes being swept around by a cold wind. What remains of life are the stubs of burnt trees; what is left of civilization are the houses that they have to plunder in order to find food. Of course other survivers have plundered the same houses before them. The agony and despair of the father as their physical condition wears down are heartbreaking.
In its grayness, a great book.
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