Not long after September 11, 2001, Cormac McCarthy and his young son John took a trip to El Paso, Texas, and checked into a hotel. Finding himself at the window in the early morning hours, McCarthy imagined what the city would look like in fifty or one hundred years. An apocalyptic vision came to mind – fires in the hills and the city laid to waste – and McCarthy wrote a few pages of notes that, several years later, became the basis for

The Road

(McCarthy Interview). A novel about a father’s love for his son in a destroyed world,

The Road

was published in 2006, spent considerable time on the bestseller lists, and garnered a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. It also enjoyed the so-called “Oprah effect” after McCarthy granted Oprah Winfrey a rare interview and the book was deemed an…

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Citation: Banco, Lindsey Michael. "The Road". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 August 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21704, accessed 28 March 2024.]

21704 The Road 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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