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Revised and quotes added 25 August 2023

This is an unremittingly bleak dystopian saga ending with the smallest gesture of hope. A gesture which offers the prospect of a dark journey continuing a little longer before petering out completely.

It’s hard to imagine a more depressing scenario. Life on earth has all but ended through an unexplained catastrophe, leaving only a few scattered humans; no birds or animals, not even, ironically, cockroaches. When we join them, a father (‘the man��) and his son (‘the boy��) are on the road:

Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire. (p4)

They are moving south to the warmth, and the coast, a warmth which is unlikely given the omnipresent ash filling the atmosphere, covering the ground, the bitter cold and the driving polluted rain. The coast turns out to be equally disappointing as the ocean is grey slosh. The absence of colour is disturbing. The lack of life is one thing, dim light another, but the charred remains and the ubiquitous grey ash over everything weighs heavily.

The gloom is heightened by its permanence. The catastrophe is not recent; it’s possible the boy has lived his entire young life in these bleak conditions: he is around eight to ten years old. His mother gave up early on, perhaps wisely, and we know this only retrospectively. The boy understands life and colour only through his father’s stories. He startles his father by asking a question:

The boy stood up and got his broom and put it over his shoulder. He looked at his father. What are our long term goals? he said.
What?
Our long term goals.
Where did you hear that?
I don’t know.
No, where did you?
You said it.
When?
A long time ago.
What was the answer?
I don’t know.
Well, I don’t either. Come on. It’s getting dark. (p170-171)

I like this exchange because it shows the boys optimism, such as it is, and his father’s determination just to keep on going.

The man keeps them alive, being practical, careful and wary: distrustful by default. With their packs and cart loaded with cans of food and supplies, the man and the boy have survived only through their systematic searching of long abandoned homes, already well-looted, looking for anything edible or useful that might have been overlooked, but usually finding only the spoiled reminders of the families who lived there.

On one occasion they find the underground hoard salted away by a prepper, long ago, hitherto untouched. They enjoy the luxury of eating till they are full, putting on new clothes, cutting their hair, washing their bodies and replenishing their supplies. But they don’t stay long. There is ever present danger, from other survivors, armed and mean. The man’s skills and good sense keep them going, and alive, but these would not be enough on their own. The difference is the boy, his son, who provides the biggest motivation for going on, for staying alive, for keeping on the move - to the south, to the coast.

The boy represents the inchoate future, such as it is. The boy retains his humanity, wanting to help people they come across, even when to do so would be unwise or pointless. In a real sense the boy keeps the man (‘Papa��) alive, at least longer than he otherwise might have.

(view spoiler)[The boy’s father dies. The boy says goodbye: ‘He cried for a long time. I’ll talk to you every day, he whispered. And I wont forget. No matter what. Then he rose and turned and walked back out to the road...He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didn't forget.' (p306)
(hide spoiler)]

***

I first thought I would begin this review referring to my own son, but it is better to add a postscript. My boy is now 16, as of early 2023, in his penultimate year of secondary school. The Road is one of his set English texts. Hence me reading it. He also needs to come to terms with Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. This strikes me as too much, after years of the pandemic, adverse climate change and increased global tensions. Could they not have set The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, or On the Road or Puberty Blues? Call it the Lord of the Flies approach to literary education.

Even so, I’m grateful for the opportunity to read The Road and to enjoy father–son bonding, while there is still time. It all goes so quickly. I am writing this as I watch him play in a round robin football competition for his school. Even though it is very hot the boys are having a great time. Which is good. They are the future after all.