Throughout most of The Road, it's not certain what has occurred, but when a father sees a series of flashes on the horizon and hears sonic booms, he suspects something horrific is happening. McCarthy carefully weaves a tale of father and son roving the country after a nuclear war. Wandering among desolate cities — filled with tall buildings wilting from the heat of the blast, and highways jammed with rusted cars filled with rotting corpses — the duo go from one vacant town to the next, all to stay a step ahead of a pack of cannibals.

At one point, the pair travel to an unnamed seaside destination and spot a wisp of smoke in the woods; what they stumble upon is nothing short of shocking. The duo's main motivation is food and survival — and the lack of it is painfully apparent. Imagine a world where everything is gone, nothing works, there's no electricity and no food, and potable water is sketchy, at best — where your chance of living depends on how fast you can outrun someone dead-set on eating you for dinner.

An astonishing aspect of the novel is that much of it is told from the little boy's absorbingly honest and innocent perspective. Nights are as dark as the inside of a coffin, and days are met with an uncertain loathing; it's these feelings of fear that grip the reader. The Road is a story where evil prevails — not unlike other McCarthy novels — but this novel paints a particularly savage portrait of the human condition.

-Jason Rice