The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Zero to Well-Read

Hosts Jeff O'Neill and Rebecca Shinsky commemorate the 20th anniversary of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road. They explore

Key takeaways

• The novel follows a man and boy attempting to survive in an ash-covered, post-apocalyptic America.
• McCarthy is described as having a 'muscular prose' style that creates a sense of mythic dread.
• The authors discuss the existential tension between choosing to survive and choosing to end suffering.
• The episode addresses the controversy surrounding McCarthy's relationship with Augusta Britt.
• McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for The Road in 2007 but did not attend the ceremony in person.

Main topics

• Cormact McCarthy's The Road
• Post-apocalyptic literature themes
• Literary legacy and bibliography

Notable quotes

We are carrying the fire.

Conclusion

A profound meditation on how even the most bleak and harrowing narrati

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Today's episode of Zero to Well-Read is sponsored by thriftbooks.com. Today's book is The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which is one of my most memorable reading experiences ever. This is Rebecca's first time, and not to spoil it, but it joins her pantheon of most memorable reading experiences as well. Get yourself a copy at thriftbooks.com. The first edition cover, and there's reprints and hardcovers, so there's, you know, in that first run, of Cormac McCarthy's The Road Before It Went to Paperback is the iconic cover. It's just very simple, black cover, and just says The Road. There's no Cormac McCarthy. There's no national bestseller. There's no book club, no whatever, no Pulitzer. The paperback is a nice cover. Nothing wrong with that. But the canonical one, if you want a book that matches the reading experience, that's the one to get. Get it at thriftbooks.com today. Speaker 3 (0:54) We've been waiting for the moment to announce our next Zero to Well-Read guided read-along, and friends, the time has come. I'm so excited to share with you that we're going to be reading John Steinbeck's magisterial novel, East of Eden, in anticipation of the Netflix miniseries that's coming out on October 1st. Guided read-alongs are available exclusively to members of our Office Hours Patreon, and they include a pre-reading guide, an exclusive bonus episode to help you get into the reading, and a private chat space for talking with participants and us. as you move through the novel. Head over to patreon.com slash zero to well read to join and you'll get two months free with an annual membership. That's patreon.com slash zero to well read. You can also find the link in the show notes. We are so excited to read this one with you. Thanks as always for listening and rocking with Zero to Well Read. Speaker 1 (1:46) Welcome to Zero to Well-Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you read. I'm Jeff O'Neill. Speaker 3 (1:52) And I'm Rebecca Shinsky. This week, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we are taking an apocalyptic journey into The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Big day for us here. Big day for me. This was my first time. Speaker 1 (2:05) It's unbelievable. I'm honored and thrilled to be here and hear what your reading experience is like. It's 20 years since The Road came out in fall. 2006. I have read it before, but only once, for reasons for those of you who read The Roam may understand, but has stuck with me. And I'd imagine, Rebecca, you can see why at this point it sticks with you. Yes. Speaker 3 (2:25) Yeah, I had several moments of pause of like, oh, I get it. I understand what people are saying when they kind of warn you off of this book. And it was also... The biggest delta between what my expectations were and what the book was of anything we've read for the show so far, actually anything that I've read in the last several years. Speaker 2 (2:46) Today's episode is brought to you by Tony's Education, nurturing imagination and promoting literacy at home and in your local library. I am so excited to tell you about Tony's. If you haven't heard of them, I think they're so cool. They're fun to look at. I think they're fun for kids to play with. And most of all, they're fun for kids to interact with, to hear stories from. They're great for... introducing kids to audiobooks and to stories, and they do so without a screen. Let's get into Tony's, y'all. So Tony's education is dedicated to promoting early literacy. building vocabulary and nurturing imagination through the screen-free Tony box system of play. The storybook Tonys have become incredibly popular at local libraries as a fun, engaging way for kids to learn. We encourage families to check with their local library to let them know you're interested in seeing Tonys on the shelves. Listeners can learn more about Tony's education and the whole child benefits by visiting their website. Go to us. tonies.com. Again, that's us.tonies.com. And get into Tony's. I think y'all will love them. They also have a Miss Rachel Tony, by the way, just throwing that out there. Thanks again to Tony's Education for sponsoring this episode. Speaker 2 (4:08) Today's episode is brought to you by JN Chaney, Terry Maggart, and Ethan Volt. The best lit RPG, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. If you would like something that's like We Are Legion, like the Boba Fett series meets Old Man's War, this is for you. So Van Tudor spent his childhood on his grandfather's farm, listening to fantastic stories of spaceships and monsters, princesses and galactic knights, and empires. He thought they were all made up, only meant to entertain until the day he inherited the family farm and discovered the truth. Grindad really was a legendary starship pilot and every adventure really did happen. And perhaps most importantly, hidden beneath the old barn, Van's legacy and inheritance awaits. It's a starship. And with the help of an android bird named Perry, who doubles as a combat AI, Van sets out for the stars in search of... answers and destiny is calling girl this is for fans of the expanse the long way to a small angry planet the murder bot diaries firefly basically all of the best sci-fi set out in space of the last like 20 plus years if you like any of those things you're going to like backyard starship book one destiny is calling by jay and chaney and terry maggart make sure to pick it up and thanks again to aethan vault for sponsoring this episode Speaker 2 (5:34) This podcast Speaker 3 (5:35) is supported by Warby Parker. I've been a Warby Parker customer for more than 10 years now, which makes sense when you consider how much time I spend in glasses. I did the math recently, and I realized that I wear them for about 80 % of my waking hours. I've worn reading glasses since I was a teenager, and in the last few years, I've graduated to progressive lenses, very glamorous. So at this point, my glasses are basically part of my face. They need to be comfortable, and I really, really want them to be cute too. And I like a bigger, more fashion-forward frame, which can be pretty hard to find in styles that actually fit my face. My latest pair from Warby Parker is the Zoya frame in Emerald Crystal, and they are exactly my kind of glasses. They're oversized and stylish in this gorgeous translucent green, and they're also really comfortable for something that I'm going to wear basically all day. Warby Parker has a huge selection of styles and their virtual try-on lets you see frames on your face right from your phone before you choose. Prescription glasses start at $95 and they also have more than 300 stores across the U.S. if you'd prefer the in-person experience. After more than a decade as a customer, I keep coming back and if I'm going to spend 80 % of my waking life in glasses, I want to really like them. Right now, you can buy one pair of glasses and get 20 % off any additional pairs at warbyparker.com slash wellread. That's 20 % off any additional pairs when you purchase one pair at warbyparker.com slash wellread. Speaker 1 (7:02) Have you done other McCarthy? Speaker 3 (7:04) I've read Sutry and No Country for Old Men. Speaker 1 (7:09) All right. Well, we can let's get into that in the show. I mean, McCarthy, I've been thinking about this and we'll talk about as we go. McCarthy and Morrison, late 20th century, like those are the two for me. I mean, I think that's probably what it is. And we'll see maybe even early into the early 21st century. I mean, this is early 21st century. This marks weirdly the apex to McCarthy's career. His most. popular moment for the book especially. And then it's a long time and then he does this weird twin books and then his life is over and that's it. So he's got to work. It took him a long time to become Cormac McCarthy, the famous author that is parodiable. I mean, he's reached one of those levels where he can be parodied because his style and subject matter is unique and consistent. And that's what you need to be parodiable, right? Unique and consistent. So that's going to be super fascinating to get into. We're getting to all of it in just a moment. Before that, you can go to the show notes or you can just go to patreon.com slash joetowellread to join the Patreon, where you get bonus content, guided read-alongs, early ad-free episodes. We haven't really talked about what we're going to do for office hours today. I was going to pitch this to you, Rebecca. One of our character power rankings doesn't work here. I was maybe, well, let's talk about our most memorable reading experiences. I love this idea. Yeah, it doesn't have to be our favorite books or anything like that, but like where you actually remember reading it, because this is one for me and, well, this was obviously one for you because you just did it, but there could be other things. So we'll do that. You know, we spend 20 or 30 minutes, like an office hour. You don't spend longer than 30 minutes at your professor's office unless something really bad is happening. That's a good check-in hang, and then you're out. Speaker 3 (8:57) Yes, I love that. We'll talk about most memorable experiences. They're starting to bubble up for me now. And I think maybe we'll have some overlap. It'll be interesting. We had pretty divergent reading lives from each other until the last 15 years. And then we have just sort of accumulated shared moments. I think that's a fun idea. Speaker 1 (9:16) And then also a reminder to rate and review the show wherever you're listening, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. We're just troubling 900 ratings on Apple Podcasts in the U.S. at least. And when we get to 1,000, we have an idea for what we're going to do. It'll be fun. There'll be some audience participation there at the same time. And speaking of audience participation, you can always email us at zerotowellread at bookriot.com. Your own most memorable reading moments, as we say on the show. The episodes are there. They don't need to be listened to in any order. We imagine people will skip a bunch or catch up and then go back or zoom forward and backward in the linear progression of the podcast feed. But the email is ready for you all the time. It's like it's just there. Like a library, like a favorite book, it's ready for you, for your takes, your experiences, your comments. And we'll do, you know, we do regular mailbag check-in. general topic episodes. And we love to hear from you and we'll get you into the feed there. Okay, Rebecca, is this the shortest synopsis? Maybe Old Man and the Sea and the Road? I Speaker 3 (10:22) really considered a one sentence synopsis here. Yeah, Speaker 1 (10:25) I know. Speaker 3 (10:26) Just as an homage to McCarthy. We put a little bit more meat on the bone. The only meat that you'll get in this entire episode, really, because of Speaker 2 (10:35) the Speaker 1 (10:35) nature of the story. Speaker 2 (10:35) And the meat that you can get, you don't want. You don't Speaker 1 (10:37) want. Speaker 3 (10:37) That's true. So this is set some years after a catastrophic event has wiped out most of humanity. Best guess is about eight to ten years, based on the ages of the characters. And it has left this catastrophic or apocalyptic event has left the earth covered in ashes. A man and his... son, we only know them as the man and the boy, are trudging toward the southern coast of the U.S. It's the middle of winter. It's too cold where they are. And they are just in this day-to-day, really hour-to-hour at points, attempt to survive. So they walk. They search for food and water. They hide from bad guys. The man begins to cough up blood. The boy is afraid. They are both afraid. The man tells the boys stories in which they are the good guys and tells him that they have to keep going because they are carrying the fire. The world is harsh, but they're really tender with each other. The moments are bleak, but hope is not lost. And that is The Road. Speaker 1 (11:38) I guess the only other bit of plot. That might matter. And I'm curious if you thought about including it here as we do get a flashback to the moment of the cataclysm and then a couple of snippets of conversation between the father and the mother when the boy is new, new enough to know that the mother exists, like it's not an infant. And the mother decides not to participate in the project or survival. Like, I'm not sure how else to put it, right? And she walks out and leaves and we... Assumes she shoots herself or jumps off something. She ends her life in some particular way. A harrowing conversation between them. And the specter of that decision hangs over the rest of the book. Not as a, at least for my reading, not as a indictment of her, but as a... It has come to this and may yet come again to this because we could find ourself in a situation where to be experiencing sensation will be the worst outcome, if that makes sense. Speaker 3 (12:44) Yeah, I thought about whether to put it up here in the top. I'm glad we're talking about it now or if we would get into it more in Speaker 1 (12:51) the Speaker 3 (12:51) details. But that is sort of the two roads that diverge in the wood of this story is the or maybe we'll quote Hamlet to be or not to be. Is in this apocalyptic moment, is life still worth living? Is the struggle to survive worth it? Or should you give up and take matters into your own hands? And McCarthy holds, I think, the validity and reasoning of both branches of that decision and Speaker 1 (13:20) invites Speaker 3 (13:20) us to consider. Why one might make the choice that the mother has made and also why one would make the choice that the man has made and what you might regret about that, what would be inspiring about it, what would be difficult and painful. And as you were just saying, what might also drive a person after choosing to try to survive to ultimately come back around and make the same choice that the wife has made. Speaker 1 (13:44) Right. Because the father's choice is not made forever and it's carried with him. literally and figuratively in the form of this gun with a finite number of bullets. So the choice is always there. Like it feels almost to me, Rebecca, like every night he's making the choice to go on. This is not one choice. This is a series, like a choice, an always already choice that at any moment could be gone the other way. And I think as much as anything, McCarthy and the father himself might be interested in optionality, right? One version of that choice you can't come back from. Whereas the choice to try is an ongoing possibility that you could still go back the other way. And that finality of the choice of one of those versions is maybe the thing they find more appealing than the actual moral, ethical, sensational outcome of either or both choices. Speaker 3 (14:36) Yeah, I think it's really clear on the page that McCarthy is not claiming or trying even to imply that one of those choices is better than the others, but that there are. Big, real reasons for both of them that all have and both have their consequences. And there is that moment where the boy asks the man, what's the bravest thing you've ever done? And he says, waking up this morning. Wake Speaker 1 (14:57) up, God. Speaker 3 (14:58) And like he's telling the truth, but he has to walk it back pretty quickly because his son is like somewhere between eight and ten. Still, for all the things that he's seen, pretty innocent and sweet. And that was one of the. There were a lot of beautiful discoveries for me about this book, but that was one of the most beautiful things was how deeply devoted this man is to trying to help his son maintain as much of that childlike sweetness and innocence inside of an experience that is anything but sweet and innocent. It was really touching. Like, I can feel myself choking up now, which does not bode well for us for the next hour. Speaker 1 (15:36) It brings emotions. Speaker 1 (15:39) close to the surface and holds them there for as long Speaker 1 (15:46) Almost longer than is bearable. And I think that's one of the fascinating things about the book. You can never recreate the experience these characters are having. That's impossible. But there's an echo of it, a shadow of it in the experience of reading it. That is, I don't know if I can go on any longer except I'm going to because it feels worth it for some reason. It's even hard to articulate. It Speaker 2 (16:12) is, yeah. Speaker 1 (16:12) I think that's fascinating. Speaker 1 (16:15) Why it's important. So McCarthy himself is now an author. We think about these in a couple terms. There's authors that are more famous than any of their books. There's authors where you name an author and you think of a couple books and there's people who are less famous than their most famous book. McCarthy's an interesting one because I think... Speaker 1 (16:37) He is more famous than any individual book, but the books he's famous for is kind of, it's Blood Meridian, No Country, and this. Speaker 3 (16:44) Yeah. Speaker 1 (16:45) And then, but weirdly he won for All the Pretty Horses. That's the one that made him more popular, but it's really the No Country book and then movie, I think importantly, the movie's wonderful. This experience and then Blood Meridian, which some people think is his best book, and then up there in the echelon. you know, a candidate for American Mount Rushmore, greatest American novels or that kind of conversation. It'd be, it'd be interesting. They're twin books in a lot of different ways. The judge is a pursuant of a character in that, but also we get Anton Chagur. Like this figure of being pursued by this dark and mimical force is McCarthy. Like. That is something, and I'm Speaker 2 (17:30) going Speaker 1 (17:30) to talk more about this later, but that is the McCarthy mode that most people know him for. And I think that through line is more famous than any of the individual books and the McCarthy-ness of it all. Speaker 3 (17:40) I think that's right. And also that the idea of McCarthy is more famous than McCarthy himself. Like people know the name, but he was really something of a cipher. We'll talk first here about the book itself. But when we get into McCarthy, the man like didn't really do a lot of press. So there's this idea of who Cormac McCarthy was and what his work did and what it meant. But like from the very little. publicly available material where he's actually speaking to the press and talking about himself and his life and his perspective, like pretty big gap between, I think, the public idea of him. But all of that makes it really interesting. By the time The Road came out in 2006, McCarthy was already a name in fiction, mostly on the back of Blood Meridian and That Big Wind, but several of his books had done very well. The Road comes out to a 250,000 copy first printing, which is a pretty sizable first print run. It was a Book of the Month Club main selection, which is not a thing that would happen now. That's wild. I don't think Speaker 1 (18:43) so. I don't think so. Speaker 3 (18:45) It's Speaker 1 (18:45) a Speaker 3 (18:45) really wild thing. He won the Pulitzer for this in 2007 and did not accept the prize in person. He sent the great The late, great editor Sonny Mehta in his place. The Road was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Kieran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss won that year. Of course, a beloved book by many people. And this notably didn't make the finals for the National Book Award. 2006 was before they published the long lists for the NBA. But Richard Powers is the Echo Maker one that year. And that's it's interesting to go back and look and kind of wonder if they got that one wrong. They got that one wrong. I like Richard Powers Speaker 1 (19:24) even more. I know you and Richard Powers have some beef. He doesn't know it. I don't Speaker 3 (19:31) think Speaker 1 (19:31) he Speaker 3 (19:31) knows it. Speaker 1 (19:31) Yeah. I don't know. This is one of those cases where. The road laughs at the idea that the National Book Critics Circle Award win or not matters to it. Right. Speaker 3 (19:46) If that, Speaker 1 (19:46) you know, I just don't think it matters. It Speaker 2 (19:48) doesn't. Speaker 1 (19:48) It doesn't matter. Yeah. Speaker 3 (19:49) We're doing bigger things. We have bigger fish to fry here with Cormac McCarthy. But critics recognize that it was named number 13 on that best books of the century list from The New York Times. And even at the time it came out, Janet Maslin reviewed it and said the imagery is brutal, even by Cormac McCarthy's high standards for despair. Speaker 3 (20:19) I think Baslin nailed it. Yeah, that's a pretty good review. Speaker 1 (20:25) And I think, too, I want to back up to that 250,000 copy first printing. Were it just another... I don't want to say it that way. Were it a Cormac McCarthy novel that was in the vein of No Country or in the vein of the Border Trilogy, which begins with All the Pretty Horses, it would not have gotten a 250,000 copy first printing. I think Meta and the good folks over at The Imprint knew they had a phenomenon here. I don't think... So it's the McCarthy-ness of it. I guess that would be fascinating. It's not possible, but what if this were a debut book? Like a debut writer couldn't. What if it wasn't McCarthy and it was some other? I don't even know who the candidates would have been. I guess 2006, Toni Morrison was still, I'm trying to think, or Don DeLillo, like one of the great stylists and masters who turn in a manuscript that has the visceral, propulsive, can't look away, and to quote Maslin here, stunning, savage beauty. of this. So it's the author and the manuscript and the material and execution all at one time. Speaker 3 (21:42) Could have been a really big breakout book for someone. I'm not sure it could have been a successful debut because the subject matter is so difficult. The trying to get over the hump of this is a really hard book to read and you don't know the person's name. But maybe somebody who had had like Let's take Jonathan Franzen because we just talked about him. Somebody who had had a couple books, he was in the water and then it was like, this is the breakout. New novel from this person who's going in a totally expanded direction. I think something like that could have happened. But this was an event. I think you're right that they knew that they had an event on their hands and they were correct. about that. PW reviewed it and called it a post-apocalyptic tour de force. McCarthy establishes himself here as the closest thing in American literature to an Old Testament prophet, trolling the blackest registers of human emotion to create a haunting and grim novel about civilization's slow death after the power goes out. But the closest thing in American literature to an Old Testament prophet? That's high praise. I Speaker 1 (22:48) mean, where else are you going to go? I mean, again, we're in rare air here. I mean, we are talking Morrison. We are talking McCarthy. And I'm not sure there's a whole lot of others. And I think the Old Testament prophet is interesting in a couple of regards. Like there is no Messiah coming to save anyone. This is not a Messianic story. This is a story of sort of living in the world of an awesome and terrible God. And then. of dealing with elemental, fable-like, mythic-like, parable-like situations here. And because it is taken out of a familiar space and time, it has an element of prophecy because it is futurity, but also it's stripped of specificity in a way that makes it easier to turn into a myth or a fable of some kind. Because, like, suddenly no—like, the stuff—other stuff he does is pretty specific. When you think about it, you know, the motels and what people are wearing and like where the guns are. And Blood Meridian, I guess, is closest to this in its feeble like turn. But this we don't know where they are. Right. They're maybe headed towards the coast. The only. That's it. Speaker 3 (23:58) clue about geography at all is that they pass a billboard that says, see Rock City. And I only know about this from my childhood, taking road trips from the Midwest to the South, where you drive through towards Rock City is a tourist attraction in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Speaker 1 (24:13) So Speaker 3 (24:14) I was like, okay, there's somewhere in the South and they're headed toward the coast. They're trying to get warmer. They don't even know if it's going to be warmer there because everything is covered in ash. And there's that hint that they haven't seen the sun. Since this event happened, because the boy asks at one point, could a bird fly high enough to see the sun? Speaker 1 (24:32) Right. Yeah. And the Rock City, I think you're right. I think probably it is that. But also Rock City is a generic enough like roadside attraction name that's sort of everywhere. But if you had to guess, they're probably headed towards the Gulf. Yeah. Down somewhere. That would be my guess in there. So that I think it I think it makes sense. I don't think it's hyperbole to think about it this way. And you have here that's dedicated to his son. We're going to talk more about, let's save talking about his son and the things that come out when Speaker 2 (25:01) we Speaker 1 (25:01) get to it here. McCarthy himself, born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1933, raised primarily in Tennessee. Hardscrabble life. He went to the University of Tennessee. joined the Air Force, read a bunch of books in the Air Force. It sounds like mostly what he did in the Air Force. Then goes back to school, drops out, starts writing, wins some awards, and wants to be a writer. Rebecca, I think it's as simple as that. He debuts with The Orchard Keeper in 1965. This is the story of a lot of writers who publish several well-regarded... books in a row. They get published. They have someone at a house that cares about them, but it's not really happening. And then they break through. I mean, Franzen and McCarthy are so different in so many ways, but I think they have become symbols of something and differently. But they have this thing in common where they're writing these early novels that got positive reviews and then nothing happened. And then only later does something happen for their careers. Speaker 3 (26:00) Nothing happened for a long time for Cormac McCarthy. And there's a way of looking at his career that is kind of a microcosm of what he's talking about in The Road of like, just keep going. Just keep swimming. Yeah, the debut is 1965. In 1981, he wins a MacArthur Fellowship, the Genius Grant, as we call it colloquially. Fund the Speaker 1 (26:21) arts. Ring the bell. Fund the arts. Fund Speaker 3 (26:24) the arts. And then in 1985. Blood Meridian comes out. And that is the first big Cormac McCarthy moment. But that's 20 years after his debut. And he did just keep running up that hill until it happened. But he would turn down paying gigs because he had enough living on what he called simple accommodations. Speaker 3 (26:47) This Speaker 1 (26:48) is my line. I won't make you say it, but like he the man knew from canned food, which he builds into the road can't big for canned food in the road. But he's built in the phrase he's built different gets tossed around. But I think McCarthy really was built different where I don't think and I don't know the man, but he was alive. He I don't think his I don't even think it was the same his disinterest in literary celebrity. was real. Like he wanted to write books and think about things and live his little life and not be distracted by the world. And so he wrote seriously. And also, I think it helps to cultivate the kind of idiosyncrasy that can lead to. durable legacy because you are different because you are kind of evolving on that. It's like there's all these weird animals in Madagascar, which is just off the coast of Africa, right? Because they've been sort of evolving for millions of years by themselves, right? And so you get ring-tailed limbers that jump on spiky trees that no one else can possibly live on. And he's a weirdo, man. And, you know, another ring the bell for weirdos. But by 92... Oh, sorry, go ahead. Speaker 3 (27:56) I would say he just wasn't interested. Like, I think he wanted to be a writer,