The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road humbles me with its greatness. It is one of the most amazing novels I’ve ever had the uncomfortable pleasure of experiencing. McCarthy creates a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is as desolate and terrifying as any ever imagined. The hardships and tribulations faced by the nomadic father/son team in the novel (The Man/The Boy) are  harrowing, gut wrenching, and terrifying. This is a horror novel masquerading as a literary work, and vice versa. A survivalist thriller that’s as much of a philosophical journey as a physical one.

The backbone of The Road is the belief that love, hope, and human decency can endure in a ruined world. McCarthy’s prose is as sparse and haunted as the wasted landscape depicted in the novel. Each word is like a fine-edged sculptor’s tool. Each word is the right word. Damn you, Cormac! You’ve crafted a masterpiece, one that will live forever in my mind and heart.