The Road

Every so often, I read a book that sticks like oatmeal on your ribs. Some books are throwaway. You read them, enjoy them, forget about them and give the book away. Not so with this one, which, even though I finished it 2 months ago, still haunts me on at least a weekly basis if not a daily one.

The book is called 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. Bestseller and all that. Also an Oprah book. I managed to overlook this part because I know McCarthy to be a solid writer. He writes westerns as well, including 'All The Pretty Horses', a definite classic. What is it about this book? No other book I have ever read has ever made me cry. But this one did in the last few pages.

The basic plot has a father and son (probably about 10 years old), both unnamed through the entire book, wandering through a post-apocalyptic world. It is never said what happened, whether it was nuclear, disease or whatever. What happened is irrelevent. The world they now live in is what is relevent. It is a world in which nothing grows, most people are dead and those who aren't eke out some sort of halfway existence by finding old stashes of canned food wherever they can and even resorting to cannibalism at times (this is only hinted at, not explicitly described.

The father and son wander throughout this world, trying to get to the ocean where they think things might be better. Most of the book is about their daily live as they struggle for just mere existence. Occasionally they see or run into people in the same shape that they are. Some are good but most are bad. As the book proceeds, the father's health declines and it becomes clear that he will die before the end of the book.

Die he does in the last 10 pages or so. Once the boy has left his father's body, he is approached by a man who has been following them and knows what has happened. He is part of a group that is also trying to survive and they are the good guys. This small group has more of a family feel, with a woman and at least one other child. At the end, they bury the father and the boy goes with the new group.

What affected me about the book is what it really is about. It's not about a man and a boy wandering through a dead world looking for food. It's about the love that a father has for his son and that the son has for the father. They will do anything for each other and each one's entire world is the other person. When the father died and I was able to understand the extent of his love for his son, that is what made me cry. Even though I love my son Caleb intensly, my love for him has deepened even more. When I had finished the book, even though Caleb was asleep, I climbed into bed with him to hold him tight.