The Road: Pulitzer Prize Winner

Cormac McCarthy

Mar 2007 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

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 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

Yeah, I get that that's the point and that's the picture he's painting, that times are bleak and blah blah. But the whole book could have been written in 3 pages which made this book a waste of time. I admittedly don't read to analyze writing style or anything like that. I read for entertainment and this book is definitely not entertaining. You keep waiting for something to happen, but it never does. Which, again, is kinda the point, but unless you want to be bored and depressed don't bother.

Unlike most negative reviews I've seen here, I didn't dislike it because it was "boring" or "depressing". I like great writing of all types. This is not great writing. Reading it was unnecessarily a chore because of the author's silly affectations, and in the end it pulled me out of the book rather than immersing me in it. Thoroughly confused by the mass hallucination that hails this book as one of the greatest of all time.

Traveled with my family to Virgina for my cousin's wedding. The book filled time perfectly both while traveling and sitting poolside at the hotel. It proved to be a quick summer read. Beautifly written, simple and enjoyable, the book left me entertained but ultimately wishing for more. Not in style, but certainly in substance. My first Cormac McCarthy novel; I found a simple beauty is his prose. He seems to find a way to illuminate through ommission. It left me wanting to read more from the author.

About the author

The novels of the American writer, CORMAC McCARTHY, have received a number of literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men—the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. He died in 2023.