The Road - Softcover
The Road has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece. The novel paints a bleak vision of a post-apocalyptic America: a land where no hope remains. A man and his son walk alone towards the coast, and this is the moving story of their journey. The Road is an unfl inching exploration of human behavior--from ultimate destructiveness to extreme tenderness.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Oprah Book Club pick
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Oprah Book Club pick
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review below. --Daphne Durham
Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
From the Publisher:
Guest Reviewer: Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, master of the hard-boiled thriller, generated a cult following with his series about private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, wowed readers with the intense and gut-wrenching Mystic River, blew fans all away with the mind-bending Shutter Island, and switches gears with Coronado, his new collection of gritty short stories (and one play).
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
**New film starring Vigo Mortensen in theaters November 2008
**Oprah Book Club pick
**New film starring Vigo Mortensen in theaters November 2008
**Oprah Book Club pick
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPicador
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0330469487
- ISBN 13 9780330469487
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages307
- Rating
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.4. Seller Inventory # G0330469487I5N00
Buy Used
US$ 6.66
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.4. Seller Inventory # G0330469487I5N00
Buy Used
US$ 6.66
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road film tie-in
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR001971399
Buy Used
US$ 1.55
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Very Good. Book is in Used-VeryGood condition. Pages and cover are clean and intact. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as CDs or access codes. May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain very limited notes and highlighting. Seller Inventory # 0330469487-2-3
Buy Used
US$ 10.21
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Fair. Buy with confidence! Book is in acceptable condition with wear to the pages, binding, and some marks within. Seller Inventory # bk0330469487xvz189zvxacp
Buy Used
US$ 10.22
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within. Seller Inventory # bk0330469487xvz189zvxgdd
Buy Used
US$ 10.22
Convert currency
Stock Image
THE ROAD FILM OME
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. THE ROAD FILM OME This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780330469487
Buy Used
US$ 4.75
Convert currency
Stock Image
THE ROAD FILM OME
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780330469487
Buy Used
US$ 4.75
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road. Film Tie-In
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present. Seller Inventory # M00330469487-G
Buy Used
US$ 4.69
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Road
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Good. Ships from the UK. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 6233429-6
Buy Used
US$ 5.42
Convert currency