Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
There are very few authors whose entire works I’ve personally sought out. Cormac McCarthy is one such gem. One of the world’s greatest living writers, his skill is something to behold. His books are dark, understated, well-crafted, and void of the bullshit that stinks up the work of so many other writers. Cormac is compelling through and through, regardless of what story he is telling.
It should be said that McCarthy isn’t the easiest author to read sometimes. He’s an immeasurable talent who plays by his own rules of writing, breaking countless others as he does his thing. But ‘The Road’ is arguably his most accessible work, and a hell of a piece of speculative fiction. The prose is minimal and frighteningly effective, weaving a bleak world with all the right words and perfect pacing. It’s so sparse and fluid; yet holds surprising warmth in a world created out of coldness and indifference. It’s mastery more easily digestible than some of his prior works.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
The Road is unsteady and repetitive–now aping Melville, now Hemingway–but it is less a seamless blend than a reanimated corpse: sewn together from dead parts into a lumbering, incongruous whole, then jolted to ignoble half-life by McCarthy’s grand reputation with Hollywood Filmmakers and incestuous award committees.