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)

Eerie

Can't tell you how many times this one sent shivers down my spine. It's a bit too real sometimes given the current political climate, but I finished it no matter how many times I put it down.

Brutal yet beatiful

Brutal yet beutiful tale read by the most astonishing narrator ever!

Amazing reflection on hope

I know this is a tough listen. It gets right to the grittiest part of humanity, survival. There are so many things that stick with me as I finish this book. It is worth every minute. Cormac McCarthy is a masterful writer.

Superb

This is my first exposure to Cormac McCarthy. "The Road" is a great story, deep and rich in meaning, and wonderfully crafted with sparse language that superbly reflects the story's apocalyptic setting. An author who can say much with so little. Loved it.

no easy listening ...

... but worth every minute. It is frightening, dark and hopeless. Still, McCarthy's prose is outstanding. The book's praise is more than justified, certainly a work to be remembered.
The narration is excellent. - Highly recommendable.

An excellent work

While the writing is brilliant, and the performance is excellent, there are many changes between the text and the audio that prove jarring.

Also, the audio skips an entire page of text near the end! I can't fathom why no one has ever bothered to fix the changes and the huge gap, but these mar an otherwise perfect experience.

Devastating

I saw the movie before reading the book. The movie adaptation follows along with the story. There were a few added pieces to the movie and not addressed in the book. Which ever you decide to read or watch you are getting a world class offering.

The whole story reads like poetry bleak and powerful. The devastating realism and imagery he uses is chilling and most times heartbreaking. The boy is completely aware of all of his losses. He is also keenly aware that all of nightmares come true on a daily basis.

The father knowing his death is imminent and struggle to keep the boy fed and healthy. His dying instructions for the boy to find and keep an eye out for the good guys. The good guys being those that hold the flame or the those that live by a moral code that struggle to survive without committing atrocities.

This is a great story and I highly recommend it to everyone. The disturbing imagery is haunting but well worth it.

Grim, but Touching:

An excellent reading of an involving narrative. McCarthy creates a post-apocalyptic world—one which seems to be in the grip of a nuclear winter—where the material basis of our culture is a midden heap from which anything of value can only be rescued with the utmost difficulty and the living natural world is shown to be the real basis of human life through its absence. (There is hardly a living thing to be found in the book, aside from the human beings, most of whom were slowly dying.) Yet at the center of the book is a believable and touching relationship based entirely on love. The father and son in The Road are characters I will be thinking about for a long long time.

stunning

fantastic book. very very gloomy and sometimes so depressing that it is hard to keep on listening, but very touching story and superbly read. My favourit audiobook so far.

It was ok.

The narrator was great, but the story was disappointing. Very predictable, even tone, no big ending. Poetic in the way it was written. I was expecting more from a book that had been made into a movie, for the first time I think a book would be better as a film.