I’m absolutely buried today, but I wanted to take a moment between editing tasks to talk about The Road. This is the post-apocalyptic equivalent of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Instead of pitting the protagonists against mindless zombies or other supernatural beasties, The Road firmly sets the charred remains of the world as the enemy. All of the other horrors inflicted on the survivors in the novel are a direct result of the harsh nature of a used-up husk of a planet.
The protagonists are a boy, born after the (presumed) nuclear war that shrouded the Earth in ash and clouds, and his father. They walk, scrounging enough food, water, clothing, and shoes to survive on a day-to-day basis. They’re going to the coast, but beyond that vague destination and day-to-day survival, they don’t have any long-term goals. Characters who find joy in a tin of pears or a can of Coke put our current consumer-driven lifestyle into sharp relief.
However, what The Road does best is kill the romanticized notion that being the last man on Earth would be anything but a nightmare.
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