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)

nice and grey, but...

i liked the dark grey tone of this novel, but to be perfectly honest, the Stechschulte's reading the boy character, drove me out of my mind and was constantly hoping the kid would get 'offed' as early as possible. his choice to read this character came off so annoying, it made the listening difficult.
that said, i enjoyed the simple story of a bleak outlook.

AWESOME BOOK....AWESOME NARRATOR!

This is a great audiobook!! The Tom narrates exactly like a 5 year old would talk...there is a child in the book.

If I have to choose between two books and Tom Stechschulte is narrating one of the othem...that is the book I got with.

Great narrator. Great story. So few and far between.

The Apocolypse on a personal level

What happens to a young boy and his father when the world is turned into a barren wasteland, full of ash and people who have nothing to eat but each other? In "The Road", the author uses the relationship to show us good and evil to the nth degree. This is the "1984" of our time. The prose is excellent, the situations and relationships are realistic and heartfelt.

boring

Doesn't go anywhere, doesn't explain what happened to the world. just sad, makes you interested but gives no explanations

bleak, beautiful, couldn't stop listening to it

This book is amazingly bleak. The type of bleak that makes you wonder why you cannot stop listening to it. It is so depressing, yet so beautiful.

As a child of the Cold War, when stories of nuclear holocaust focused on the first days and months, I found it horrifying and new to contemplate what the world would be like years after what I presume was a nuclear holocaust in the book. The canned foods are gone, the clothes are in tatters, there is no farming, manufacturing, or economy. Most people have died, and many of those that remain have joined gangs of people stealing, killing, and practicing cannibalism to survive. The setting was so well-imagined, and so terribly depressing.

What kept me attached to the book was the love and devotion of the father toward his son, and their need to retain both hope and morality to survive. To retain a bit of goodness in the horrible world of the book - well, if you or I lived in that world, could we keep any vestige of hope or goodness?

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that I found it hard to listen to this book during my normal "audiobook routine" (that is, commuting to and from work). It was difficult to drive home and be ready to play with my kids after an hour of this bleakness. I should have reserved the book for other times to listen or read the paper version.

Outstanding narration

I'm surprised that there isn't more mention of the narration of this book. I thought it was outstanding. Very difficult to do an adult and a little boy - made this excellent book all the better.

Powerful, horrifying, depressing

I listened to the audiobook version of The Road read by Tom Stechschulte. It was powerful, horrifying, and depressing. I was near the end of the book when I needed to attend my daughter’s soccer game and I couldn’t put it down so I finished it up just as the game ended with a win for my daughter’s team. I am sure a few of the other soccer moms were wondering why I was crying.

One of my favorites.

Some would say that this book is depressing. I personally don't think it is. This book makes you think (what if?). I wasn't disappointed and will purchase other MaCarthy novels. P.S. I thought the narrator was very good also. He didn't put me to sleep and didn't leave me with a headache.

A memorable Read

An interesting take on the apocolypse and the survival of "humanity"

Bleak yet inspiring

This is a book not for the faint of heart. I love stories that are dark and bleak. This checks all the boxes. Just when you think this world can't get any crueler, it does. At the center is a father and son. Their relationship is the light that makes this book beautiful. The father takes care of his son in every way possible. He tries to teach him what he can to survive in the world they live. My only problem is the ending. I think the ending should have been different, however this is my own opinion. It's a good ending but not the ending I might have done. All in all it was a great book. If you like stories that are just sad and dark then this is for you.