The Road by Cormac McCarthy

America has been recurrently in trouble in US literature since this century began but no one has gone quite as far as Cormac McCarthy in The Road. This isn't just a changing America, this is a superpower destroyed, a post-nuclear America "barren, silent and godless." Through this charred wilderness journey a father and a son, hurrying south to find better weather. This is a different kind of McCarthy novel, even its name a telling contrast to the lyrical titles in the author's back catalogue (Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses etc). McCarthy's fascination with violence returns, but is somehow beyond his usual range, most notably the scene featuring a disembowelled infant. But what elevates this book beyond shock-tactic science fiction is the palpable strength of the deftly written father-son relationship. The Road has been championed by almost everyone who has come in contact with it, enough for critics to re-evaluate McCarthy's position in American fiction and laud him in the same breath as Roth and Updike. The Road is a slim volume to be savoured, each short paragraph deserving and demanding more than one reading. Leave out your bookmark, let the book fall open and enjoy each starkly evocative description. Moving, hypnotic, savage and disturbing; read it and weep. [Graeme Allister]