FIVE THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE READING
CORMAC MCCARTHY‘S THE ROAD
1) You cannot put it down. For people who have 9-to-5 jobs, this is a problem. For people who are easily spooked and who live in creaky old houses, it’s an even bigger problem. The Road will keep narcoleptics up past bedtime.
2) It is impossible to shake off. For days afterward, the world feels just as dreary as the one McCarthy has created. If you’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale, you know what I mean. You’ll never look at a can opener the same way again.
3) For New Orleanians, it hits close to home. Do I really need to read about a world of destruction and chaos and limited resources and no leadership and a reduced population of survivalists when I have two perfectly good windows that face the street? I mean, things are definitely, totally getting way better down here, but yeah, it’s a little soon.
4) For readers of a certain age, it dredges up childhood fears. Remember Threads and The Day After and Where Have All the People Gone? and about a bejillion other 70s/80s movies about the extinction of mankind via natural and unnatural means? Remember the nightmares that crap used to give you? Well, get the Tylenol PM handy, that’s all I’m sayin’.
5) It makes you worry for those you love. I might be alone in this, but when I think about potential tragedies, I don’t think about myself too much; I think about the boyfriend and family and friends and pets and everyone else in my life. See, when you worry, I think you’re concerned about loss, and you can’t lose yourself, can you? So, basically, unless you’re one of the girls at Mrs. Meers’ Hotel for Young Women (i.e. all alone in the world), The Road may cause an ulcer or two.
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