The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

Well, ye socks, I just got done reading the latest tome in my checklist of recent Pulitzer Prize winners.

This one won the prize for fiction in 2006.

But, be forewarned. It is not one of those fuzzy, feel-good novels that lets the reader escape into a pleasant alternate reality.

Instead, the post-apocalyptic world presented by El Paso writer Cormac McCarthy offers only a bitterly cold landscape, covered in soot and ravaged by the cannabilistic survivors of some great calamity.

He never really defines what exactly that calamity was. It isn't important, as McCarthy's true intent is the cautionary tale that springs-up in its wake--one of a man and his son journeying along a nameless road that gave this novel its simple title.

McCarthy peppers the tale with symbolism. Some of the images are likely to become indelibly etched in the reader's mind. Hopefully, some of the wisdom will, too.

Bottom line: not an easy read, but worth it.