The Road: Fatherhood and Fiction

“He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

"Dude honestly idk if that's good for you" was a good friend's sage advice when I mentioned I'd be reading (listening to) Cormac McCarthy's seminal post-apocalyptic novel The Road for the first time in chunks during the wee hours while caring for our newborn.

He'd recommended it upon reading (his first McCarthy, as it would be mine), but did so hesitantly, conceding "it's pretty bleak, up your alley, but maybe not best for a new dad". Of course I was aware of the novel, in fact I'd purchased a copy years ago only for it to languish on my shelves. Cormac McCarthy is a giant of American Literature whose works had heretofore intimidated me. What if his legendary prose proved too heady for my simple, rotted millennial mind? What if I didn't get it, man? Yet, being the masochist I am, the promised emotional punch and newfound relevancy of the work was too enticing to pass up.

The novel's premise: a father and son trekking south across a wasted landscape post-Armageddon (presumably in the thick of nuclear winter) in search of... well, anything.

Me: being daggered by McCarthy's brutalist prose via a headphone in one ear, listening to my own son's gentle snores in the other, questioning my life decisions and choking back tears in the early-morning darkness.

My buddy was spot on, the book is bleak, to be sure. There is little hope to be found in McCarthy's desolation. Still, I found the story strangely life-affirming on the whole. Maybe not "strangely" at all. It is the necessary utter bleakness that makes their resilience and resolve to "carry the fire" all the more impactful. The cruelty of their environment which makes the love between father and son so moving. It is an exercise in absurdity in the philosophical sense. The rebellious drive to live and love in an irrational cosmos devoid of innate meaning.

The Man's struggle with self-doubt over his ability to care for and protect the Boy echoes my own anxiety. My son (to steal directly from Cormac) is my world entire. The need to do right by him weighs heavily, but after the final line of the book fades in my ear, it only takes the steady rise and fall of his breathing in the stillness of night to summon the will to carry the fire.

TL;DR: read The Road. It's great.

Cheers,

M.