The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road

Pulitzer Prize Winner

Cormac McCarthy

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 28, 2007

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son’s fight to survive that “only adds to McCarthy’s stature as a living master.

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Who it’s for
Readers interested in post-apocalyptic survival stories
Themes
post-apocalyptic survival, parental love, desperation and hope
Pacing
Reflective

About this book

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son’s fight to survive that “only adds to McCarthy’s stature as a living master. It’s gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful” (San Francisco Chronicle). One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century A father and his son walk alone through burned America.

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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.

Who it’s for

  • Readers interested in post-apocalyptic survival stories
  • Those who appreciate deeply emotional father-son relationships

Where it sits

Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic95%
Dystopian68%
Literary Fiction56%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Family Sagas
  • Literary Fiction
  • Coming-of-Age
Authors
Cormac McCarthy
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published
March 28, 2007
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
post-apocalyptic survival · parental love · desperation and hope
Reading lane
Family Sagas