The first time I heard about The Road was while I was home in maternity leave, watching Oprah for some reason. She had just read the book, and added it to her book club. I decided immediately that I was never to read it. I have seen before the books she chooses for her book club, none of them has been the kinds I like to read. A lot of self help books…. She also presented a TV-interview of the author, his first for some reason, even though he has been an active author for 4 decades. She spent it asking him the stupidest questions ever, and I was even less impressed with both her and the author when it was done.

For some reason I picked up the book at a store, and opened it a random place, and read a page, and that was all it took for me. When I came home I downloaded the audio book, and started listening to it right away. I was drawn in after only a few minutes.

The book is about a father and a son walking an a post apocalyptic landscape. They are trying to survive, civilisation is dead, and so is the earth and all animals. The sun is blocked out, and everything is covered in ashes.

The style of the book is something I have never seen before. McCarthy writes in a minimalist style. I have never seen before someone that spends so few words. And still, I don’t think I have ever before been able to visualize to my self a story so vividly as I did with this one. It is so raw, and so beautiful, and so terrifyingly possible. It’s like a political kick, a horror story, and a love story all in one. I felt depressed, and I felt alive at the same time reading it. I don’t think a book has ever made me feel so strongly before as this one.

Minimalism is my favourite style in art, but I have never read a minimalist book before, and I love it. To be able to express so much, with so little shows a true master and a genius. Still, I am not sure if I would have liked the book if I had read it, I listened to the fantastic voice of Tom Stechschulte. It might have been too odd for me, but read out loud the way he did, it was just perfect. I feel like I have experienced it, not just read it.

I sat on the buss listening to the amazing voice of the reader, smiling at times, choking up at other times, and most of the time I was stiff, clenching my muscles with fear, cause I have never cared so much for the protagonists as I did for these. I feel silly for saying it. Maybe it is because I am a mom, that I am so scared for the child in the story, understanding the father so much too. I know I have changed after I had my son, I don’t read books and watch movies with children well anymore. But I choose to think it is not just because of that, but because the author is brilliant.

As you probably already know, I loved the book, and I recommend it with all my heart.

It has a third place, and a score of 90 at Metacritics booklist.