The road by cormac mccarthy

Synopsis:
A 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. They 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.
The prose is quintessentially McCarthy: spare, desolate, unemotional, reserved of
Both unnecessary vocabulary and punctuation (he recognized the necessary evil of
Periods denoting the end of a sentence. Some contractions are so designated with an
Apostrophe, some not. Exclamation points are avoided with the same vigilance as
Would be shown to beanies with propellers). Although most English teachers I’ve
Been a captive audience to would consider him Satan incarnate, he still can turn a
Phrase of almost unbearable beauty.
THE ROAD
By
Cormac McCarthy
Copyright © M-71, Ltd. 2006
This book is dedicated to
JOHN FRANCIS MCCARTHY
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to
Touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights

dark beyond darkness and the days more
Gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma
Dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He
Pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and
Blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream
From which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the
Hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable
Swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone
Flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth
And the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a
Great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature
That raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with
Eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the
Water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked
And translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its
Bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head
From side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and
Loped soundlessly into the dark.
With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road
And squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless. He
Thought the month was October but he wasnt sure. He hadnt kept a calendar for
Years. They were moving south. There’d be no surviving another winter here.