The Road

What The Road is about

Something has destroyed industrial civilization and nearly all life, and the cause is never named. A father and his young son walk south along back roads toward the sea, hoping to escape the coming winter. They own very little, and the cold, the hunger and the bands of cannibals on the roads make every day dangerous. The father's cough is getting worse.

The boy's mother is gone, and what holds the two together is love and a private promise that they are the good guys, the ones carrying the fire. Cormac McCarthy writes in spare, bleak, haunting prose about survival, morality when everything has collapsed, and hope that persists in the dark. It won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It is a demanding read, best for those who can sit with sorrow and want fiction about what a parent will do for a child.

Questions about The Road

When was The Road published?

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was first published in 2006.

Was The Road one of the best books of 2006?

The Road is #11 on BookWard's Best Books of 2006, out of 46 2006 books that cleared our data bar. 1,235 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (176 ratings); 26 are reading it right now.

Why is The Road on the Best Books of 2006 list?

1,235 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (176 ratings); 26 are reading it right now.

More of the best books of 2006

• The Sea of Monsters Rick Riordan, #1
• The Book Thief Markus Zusak, #2
• Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #3
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne, #4
• The Secret Rhonda Byrne, #5
• Mindset Carol S. Dweck, #6

See the full Best Books of 2006, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.