The Road by Cormac McCarthyA father and son walk through an Earth that is slowly dying in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. There are few people left in McCarthy’s bleak look at the future and of the people left, not all can be trusted. The father and son, who remain nameless through out the book, travel along road going south, hoping for warmer weather and more food. To survive, they rummage through abandoned, desolate homes for food. The man’s soul purpose is to protect his son, who was born on the eve of the disaster that killed most people, and to ensure his survival.

The Road is one of the most beautifully written books that I’ve read in a long time. McCarthy manages to tap into the deep recesses of every human’s fears and makes you confront them in every page that you read.I think that this book reaches into the soul of every parent and makes us look at how hugely our life changes when we have a child and what we are willing to do to protect that child.

My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you.

I think what appealed to me so much about this book is because every fear that I had when I became a mother was manifested in this novel. My job as a mother is to make sure that my daughter makes it to the next day and the day after. When she was an infant, her life was so fragile; I was frantic that anything would happen to her, but as she grows older and becomes more independent, I worry less because not only is she now firmly entrenched in this world, but she is less dependent on me. Granted, I’m not looking to kill anyone anytime soon like in The Road, but honestly, I don’t know what I would do if I felt like my daughter’s life was in danger.

He held the boy close to him. So, thin. My heart, he said. My heart…That the boy was all that stood between him and death.

The other deep fear that this book taps into is death. I’ve never really been afraid to die; everyone dies at some point in their lives and I was okay with that. Then I had a child. My life is intricately tied to Magpie’s. No matter what I do, what or where I go, she is effected by that. I’m not afraid so much about the actually dying part, as I’m afraid of leaving my child behind who needs me. Until her birth, I had never been so confronted with the beauty of living and the finality and devastation that death could bring. This is a reality that confronts the father everyday and he fights to ensure his survival because it means the survival of his son.

Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again.

The last parental fear that this book brings up is the fear of what we are leaving behind for our children. This fear, I could not relate to as well, but I could understand the premise behind it. In The Road, the father tells his child of a world that was full of green trees, food and life; this is a world that the boy will never know of. The child is constantly scared and the father wishes that he could give the boy pieces of what he had in his childhood, but he can’t because what has been done, cannot be undone.

There are many more themes in this novel that could be reviewed and dissected, but that would make for another book. With the simple words in The Road, McCarthy manages to review the deepest human desires and fears. I felt so attached to this book, that I could not write an honest review without sharing the feelings that this book evoked for me. Everyone’s reading of the book is going to be different; another magnificent aspect of this novel is the many interpretations, opinions and feelings that are brought forth from the reader that makes this a book to be shared.

For a less personal review, read The Road: After the Apocalypse by Michael Chabon.

Is there a book that you’ve read that tapped into your deepest fears?

Book Source: Audiobook from Hennepin County Library, Eden Prairie, MN

Referrer: Interview with Chip Kidd, graphic designer for The Road, on Minnesota Public Radio

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