We carry the fire.

I recently read one of the best books I have read in years . . . maybe one of my favorite books ever. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a true masterpiece. I am about a year late getting to this book, and I have actually owned it for quite a while, but I only recently got around to reading it. (It also won the Pulitzer Prize.)

I have loved other books by Cormac McCarthy, but nothing prepared me for reading The Road. The plot is simple: in a post-apocalyptic world (we never know the real details of what happened), most people are dead, and the world is gray and empty. A father and his young son walk along an abandoned highway trying to get to the ocean. They are met with brutal violence and terrible conditions, but the novel is so much more than a post-apocalyptic thriller.


Instead, The Road is a beautiful and tender father/son story, and it is among the most moving things I have ever read. Yes, the book is profoundly disturbing, but it is a power that haunted me long after I stopped reading it. At my new school, we frequently have "Reading Workshop" for students to read books of their own choosing. On these days, I also read along in whatever book I am reading at the time. As I was approaching the end of The Road, I felt my emotions welling up, and I knew that I was going to be a mess. So I had to stop reading, since I did not want to be all crying in front of my students. So I waited until class was over and finished it. On the train ride home that night, I simply stared out the window and thought about what I had just experienced.

I am still thinking about it, two weeks later.