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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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)

Really Thought Provoking

The Road touched me deeply. Although it is an apocalyptic story; it is really about love and the ???fire within???. It seemed realistic and provoked a reflection on the values of civilization, life and the goodness within us.

Beautiful reading of a great book

Any additional comments?

McCarthy's story of a father struggling to keep himself and his son alive, physicially and spiritually, as they wander in a wasted post-Apocalyptic America, is incredibly bleak but is also gripping and suspenseful, and the prose is lean but poetic and even lyrical. Tom Stechschulte's reading is dramatic and emotive, and expertly conjures the characters and the narrative voice. I tried watching a few minutes of the movie adaptation and immediately turned it off because I knew right away it could not come close to the power of the story as rendered by McCarthy's prose and Stechshulte's reading. I may get around to reading the book in print some day, but this spoken version may be hard to beat.

great

narrator had a very smooth voice very easy to listen to and hard to put down

Bleak

Any additional comments?

A bleak post-apocalyptic story, about a man and his son, in a land where there is almost no food and most animals are extinct. I actually saw the movie first, but the book is of course much better. I did enjoy this book, but don't read it if you are looking for a happy story.

This is one of my top 3 all time favorite books

If you could sum up The Road in three words, what would they be?

I love the book and this audio book is just as good. I do have to wonder how safe a driver I am when all of a sudden Im at my destination and remember nothing of the drive because I was so involved in my audio book!

What other book might you compare The Road to and why?

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

Which scene was your favorite?

When they find the underground compound full of food.

Outstanding book

Author has a great command of the English language. The type of book you can't put down.

Suspensul and dramatic.

Suspensul and dramatic, an amazing piece of literature from a great author. A true must read.

An all time father-son story

I had a tough time starting this story at first. I found the "stream of consciousness" style and prose a little difficult to read. Not that it's a difficult read, just not really my style.

Anyhow, I'm glad I gave the audiobook a shot because I could see, while the style wasn't meshing, the writing and story were checking all the boxes.

First of all, the audio narrator was fantastic. Then the story, while simple, struck with such force. There are moments in the book that are so mundane but are quickly offset by visceral interactions. I feel Cormac McCarthy built a very beleiveable post-apocalyptic world/reality.

His writing is close to poetry and I have to say, by the end, I felt the story had been perfectly crafted.

Well Damn.

I feel the book is a bit repetitive (often to its benefit) but damn is this one heavy, sad, real story. One of the most consistently realistic pieces I've ever read, really surprised at how great this was. The ending really got me.

Definitely an obvious and HUGE inspiration for The Last of Us, which crafts a very similar world and dynamic (however this is a known trope 'wolf and cub').

I quite appreciated the subtle spirituality of the book, that doesn't lean towards anything or even affirms its existence, something I also noticed in No Country for Old Men, almost making it an agnostic/synchronistic Western.

Quite heavy, gruesome, and dark, but moving and heartbreakingly true.

Great listen!

Really the first fictional Audiobook I was captivated by and able to listen to from beginning to end.