The Road

By: Cormac McCarthy

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2007

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst this destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still, they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world of utter devastation.

Bleak but brilliant, with glimmers of hope and humor, The Road is a stunning allegory and perhaps Cormac McCarthy's finest novel to date. This remarkable departure from his previous works has been hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a "novel of horrific beauty, where death is the only truth".

McCarthy, a New York Times best-selling author, is a past recipient of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. He is widely considered one of America's greatest writers.

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©2006 M-71, Ltd. (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC

Critic reviews

"McCarthy's prose retains its ability to seduce...and there are nods to the gentler aspects of the human spirit." (The New Yorker)
"One of McCarthy's best novels, probably his most moving and perhaps his most personal...Every moment of The Road is rich with dilemmas that are as shattering as they are unspoken...McCarthy is so accomplished that the reader senses the mysterious and intuitive changes between father and son that can't be articulated, let alone dramatized...Both lyric and savage, both desperate and transcendent, although transcendence is singed around the edges...Tag McCarthy one of the four or five great American novelists of his generation." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Please reissue w a different reader

It’s a tribute to Cormac McCarthy‘s writing that you can appreciate the pros and the story despite the unjustly sophomore reading

I found it Boring

not my fav. bleak and slow for my taste. perhaps others who prefer books of this caliber will like it.

Dark and poignant. Stark depiction of apocalypse

I loved this book and binged it in 24 hrs. To call it bleak is an understatement. A superbly narrated tale of a dark and terrifying future post apocalypse. We dont know exactly what happened. this book is about Love

Thrilling

Loved every minute of this audio book Was captured from beginning to the end. Can’t recommend enough

Reader Beware… Of your own expectations

In an attempt to temper the more critical reviews:

This story is a love poem from a father to his son set against the slow dying of everyone and everything and every creed around them.

There is repetitiveness, the words “and” and “cold” and “ok” are almost a chant in their repetition.

There is danger, and small triumphs but no high adventure, no evil overlords to thwart, no post-apocalyptic gun-p@rn, no conspiracies to tease, no society to rebuild and no “getting the girl” in the end.

There is simply the long hard self consuming march through a mortal hell that a father would endure to ensure the survival of his child.

That’s is all this story is.

Narration is top notch.

Great

One of my favorite novels. Re listen worthy. Sparse, brutal, atmospheric, and a ripping adventure

One for the ages. The heart of this story heart

There is nothing more moving that a father and son relationship against all odds. this delivers

Well Written and Harrowing

A Mad Max tale that will make you sit up and reconsider the importance of global peace for humans and the earth.

Awesome book

Loved this audio—the narrator completely brought it to life. I think that’s what made it so good.
I laughed and cried!

Father & Son

EVERYTHING COVERED IN ASH
post-apocalyptic book with real grit!
incredible narrator, the way Cormac McCarthy describes the vastness of the wasted world & and the searing anger of a father screaming into the void of a dead planet attempting to piece together a future for his son. If you finished this story with dry eyes, you don't have a heart!