A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearting, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, 'each the other’s world entire,' are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Staff Review:
A real page-turner, telling the story of a man and his young son, two of the only survivors of an unnamed (but presumably Bush-related) cataclysmic disaster that wiped out most life on Earth. Together the two attempt to survive a brutal winter, heading south and west as they scavenge for mushrooms, fruits, tins of food, clean sources of water, dry places to sleep -- and safety from the marauding gangs of scum who want to use the boy for food and sex. Dark, dark stuff along the lines of Saramago's Blindness, one of my other favorite reads this year; a perfect holiday gift for that friend or relative who loves literature but hates humanity.
-Eric Allen Hatch, Atomic Books Blog