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The Road cover art

The Road

By: Cormac McCarthy
Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
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Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2007

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst this destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still, they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world of utter devastation.

Bleak but brilliant, with glimmers of hope and humor, The Road is a stunning allegory and perhaps Cormac McCarthy's finest novel to date. This remarkable departure from his previous works has been hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a "novel of horrific beauty, where death is the only truth".

McCarthy, a New York Times best-selling author, is a past recipient of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. He is widely considered one of America's greatest writers.

©2006 M-71, Ltd. (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC

Critic Reviews

"McCarthy's prose retains its ability to seduce...and there are nods to the gentler aspects of the human spirit." (The New Yorker)
"One of McCarthy's best novels, probably his most moving and perhaps his most personal...Every moment of The Road is rich with dilemmas that are as shattering as they are unspoken...McCarthy is so accomplished that the reader senses the mysterious and intuitive changes between father and son that can't be articulated, let alone dramatized...Both lyric and savage, both desperate and transcendent, although transcendence is singed around the edges...Tag McCarthy one of the four or five great American novelists of his generation." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

What listeners say about The Road

Average Customer Ratings
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a great listen

captures the hopelessness of it all, really does a good job world building.

its not a actioned pack book, but it is one of my favourites

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrifyingly bleak

There arent many audiobooks that are as captivating and as beautifully presented as this. A story of surviving or succumbing to the scariest environment imaginable.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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An amazing read

Brilliant story, brilliantly read. A disturbing, violent picture of a world in chaos, balanced with a story of a father's love for his child. Absolutely beautiful.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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The high bar of dystopian fiction

The sparse, minimal prose add greatly to the haunting effect of this novel. Loved the narration. Did I mention bleak?

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Helped show me why Mccarthy is not the same level as other great authors

I never understood why McCarthy wasn't celebrated internationally but listening to this made me realise how cringe the book is, it's extremely uncomfortable to listen to. Characters are caricatures of themselves, sentences scream with all of the techniques but none of the beauty. Stories are laced with melodrama and suffocate in their own superfluousness, leaving no sense of atmosphere. It was as if it was written by someone who never had taken the time to study how people actually work, and never truly analysed what made traditional literature great, and never had someone outline the pretentiousness back to him. How disappointing.

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The end of the world is so sad, but there’s always hope

The story was amazing, I couldn’t stop listening. The narrator held me transfixed, waiting to see what happened next. It gave me hope that if this ever did befall the world, there’d always be “the good guys”.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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the narration and the story

I loved this immersive descriptive story and the audible book was very entertaining. I enjoyed the characters and the world they lived in

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Another Great American Novel

Cruel, bleak and self consciously literary. Great writing transcends the writer; in this story the writer is ever present, with all his biases. Capable of poetic insight, but determined to keep his characters and readers mired in ashen mud. It felt like a scolding. Disappointing.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

A pointless romp through a pointless world.

The author is clearly a sadistic nihilist.
And someone needs to take the words "cold" and "dark" away from him.
The story itself is nothing more than child torture porn.
The "Father" is woefully terrible as such and the Child only exists to be put through meaningless, unnecessary misery.
There is nothing to be gained by reading this garbage unless you are also a sadistic nihilist.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Disturbing

This book is not something I would normally read but I did 'enjoy' it. It was so grim, a little annoying with the continuous use of 'ok'. But overall, I liked it. Narrator was good.

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