The 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner. I've read all the winners since 1947, so I can unequivocally state this is the first "speculative fiction" (aka science fiction) winner. McCarthy doesn't usually write sf. As sf goes, it is not as good as other post-apocalyptic novels I have read. He focuses on the relationship between a father and son as they journey down "the road", paring the rest of the story to the bone. We only get glimpses of post-apocalyptic life, and everything is ambiguous. There is no explanation or history that explains what has happened, the reader is left to imagine. The principal difficulties for the survivors are starvation and avoiding the cannibals that seem to be wandering about.
I can't write a book opinion without commenting on what I would have written differently. The focus for the father should be that he is trying to find a safe place for his son, since he is slowly dying. As written, they just seem to wander south. If the father had a goal of finding a group of people to take in his son before he dies - and he actually succeeds before passing away, the novel would be much better. As written, the father dies, and the kid gets lucky. Not very satisfying.
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