The Road is bleak and forbidding and utterly beautiful. You know from early on that no happy ending is possible in this desolate future world. Everything is burned to ash, there is little sunlight, nothing growing, only a few desperate souls left alive. And yet, a father keeps going for the sake of his son, born in the aftermath of whatever catastrophe brought down the world:

They sat in the window and ate in their robes by candlelight a midnight supper and watched distant cities burn. A few nights later she gave birth in their bed by the light of a drycell lamp. Gloves meant for dishwashing. The improbable appearance of the small crown of the head. Streaked with blood and lank black hair.

I am a fan of post-apocalyptic stories — what happens after the nuclear war, after the meteor’s impact, after some third world government’s experiments in biological warfare wipe out half the planet. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with as little cause for hope as this one. There is simply nothing left; the ragged bits of humanity that remain have consumed everything that was not burned. In the face of such destruction, you cannot hope to come over a hill and find a green valley. Eventually, the last survivors will consume each other and the world will be a dead rock in space — and yet, people go on. What makes a man keep walking, keep fighting, keep hoping? Is that how he proves his love, or would it be kinder to end it all?

This father quite obviously loves his son. He is the one thing that keeps him going, his drive to keep his son alive at all costs. When he wakes in the dark, his first thought is to reach for the boy, check for his breathing and his heartbeat. Even in such difficult circumstances, there is great love between them. He says about the boy:

He said: if he is not the word of God God never spoke.

My heart ached for the boy in this book. He has never known the things that we all take for granted. He took his first steps in a world that was already ending. He seems to know what he has missed, in an unfocused sort of way. You wonder what goes on in his mind, what dreams he must have. He’s brave and tougher than I could be in his shoes, but he still has a child’s heart, like when he begs his father not to hurt a dog they encounter. Even starving, he knows the good guys don’t kill dogs.

So, what makes you keep reading a story so desolate? The language is beautiful. It is a strange skill, to be able to describe something so ugly, but make it beautiful in the telling.

No tracks in the road, nothing living anywhere. The fireblackened boulders like the shapes of bears on the starkly wooded slopes. He stood on a stone bridge where the waters slurried into a pool and turned slowly into gray foam. Where once he’d watched trout, swaying in the current, tracking their perfect shadows on the stones beneath.

It is a testament to hope, I suppose. To faith. To keep going when there is no end in sight, when you don’t know where you are going or what you will find there. There is also no explanation, and maybe none is necessary. It is easy enough to imagine scenarios that could bring this about and I hate to be battered over the head with clues. Far better to let a reader fill in their own blanks with their own worst imaginings.

I read the first 200 pages or so of The Road while I was getting a pedicure, which seemed almost perverse. I read more of it over lunch, but it seemed just wrong to be reading about their starvation over a cobb salad and iced tea. I finished it at home, alone. I am a terrible weepy thing when it comes to books and movies, and this was no exception. More than a week later, my eyes are still too shiny, looking for the quotes I wanted to use for this review. I am immediately plodding along that road again.

The Road is also destined for theaters, starring Viggo Mortensen as The Man and Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. It is scheduled for release this October.

 

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