The Road

Cormac McCarthy

Mar 2007 · Recorded Books · Narrated by Tom Stechschulte

About this audiobook

The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. 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.

Ratings and reviews

Good survival story but that's pretty much all it is. A father and son surviving the cold then a small twist at the end but not what I thought was exceptional. Very descriptive but that is it's shining quality. Other than that, it's not something I'd recommend or read again.

SUCH A DARK , FRIGHTENINGLY , BEAUTIFUL BOOK. THE. ONLY BOOK THAT HAS EVER MADE ME GET UP FROM BED AND TURN THE LIGHTS ON CAUSE I WAS A SCARED 44 YEAR OLD MAN, BUT HADE THE WILLIES LIKE AN 8 YEAR OLD. BUT SO WELL WRITTEN THAT THE WORD "YELOW" MADE ME CRY WITH HAPINESS. BEST BOOK IVE READ , LISTENED TO,THEN REREAD AND REREAD AND LISTENED TO THEN READ A FEW MORE TIMES. A GREAT , BOOK WRITTEN IN ASH AND DARKNESS.

the greatest post apocalyptic book i have ever come across: i could not stop listening, riveting.

About the author

Cormac McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20, 1933. He attended the University of Tennessee, but interrupted his studies for four years to join the U.S. Air Force. He died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., on June 13, 2023. He was 89. His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. His other works include Outer Dark, Child of God, Suttree, and Blood Meridian. All the Pretty Horses, the first part of the Border Trilogy, which also includes The Crossing and Cities of the Plains, won the National Book Award in 1992. His novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into a film in 2007. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road. He has also written plays and screenplays.