Mesmerisingly bleak
I had heard how utterly dark this novel was, but honestly I had no idea. It's like Cormac McCarthy read Stephen King's The Stand, then turned to his page and said, “Oh yeah? Hold my beer.”
There are so many unknowns. What happened to reduce the world to this ashy blackness? We are never given even a hint of the disaster. The man and the boy are never given names. Their histories are meager. The man recalls the boy's mother on a couple of occasions, they reminisce about events that we as readers have witnessed, but dwelling on a long-gone past would only be masochistic. Where are these two trying to get to? South is the only goal that we hear from them. How long have they been on the move? Why is it so cold? Has the weather been altered too? As the father and son discuss, there must be good people somewhere but how do you find them? How are they surviving?
And yet, it is compelling. I kept reading, always hoping for more clues. Will they find a safe place to sleep? Will they be warm enough? Can they find more food? Just as the two of them put one foot in front of the other, I felt that I must pay attention to each small progress. All the while, sitting in my warm home, drinking my coffee, preparing meals whenever I felt the need. I felt almost guilty about the comfort of my life.
Book 479 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
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