January 2012 Guest Editor Simon Lelic selects The Road...
Technically and philosophically, this is probably not McCarthy’s best book. His masterpiece, probably, is Blood Meridian – although I also love Child of God. And Outer Dark. And . . . Well, everything else McCarthy has produced. But The Road, I would say, is my favourite of his novels, if only for the devastating portrait he paints of a father’s love for his son. I must have read this novel four or five times now (I’ve seen the film, too, but only once and never again). Devastatingly simple, yet dazzling in so many ways, this is the book I wish I had written.
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2007.
Once in a while a book comes along that is so powerful, so terrible and so beautiful that you are left staggered at its close. This is one such. A journey through a devastated, post-apocalyptic America that is both frightening and strangely hopeful. It’s not an easy read but once embarked upon, it’s hard to draw away. Father and son share their dreadful experiences and their love. It has just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and been chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her Book Club so it’s going to sell bucket-loads in America and deserves to do the same over here.
Similar this month: None.
Comparison: J G Ballard, J D Salinger.
| Primary Genre | Dystopian and utopian fiction |
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