Cormac McCarthy's bleak vision of the American landscape has always had a cataclysmic undertone, so it comes as no surprise that THE ROAD is actually set in a post-apocalyptic world of ash and bitter cold where cannibalistic marauders roam the countryside. In this dire place, a man and his son travel towards the sea armed only with a revolver and two bullets. Amid this desolation, a tin of canned pears is a thing of wonder, and a broken wheel on their shopping cart can mean the difference between life and death. Their love for each other is fierce, but the son fears that his father has, in his desperation, become as savage and brutal as the world around him. Cormac McCarthy writes with a searing white heat, his images and language strike deep in the reader, and his vision of humanity is inexorable and haunting.