“The Road” was my first Cormac MacCarthy, and certainly it will not be the last. I picked it up for two reasons: 1) I’ve been trying to read more contemporary works, and; 2) a few years ago everybody seems to be reading this book, and I had heard great things. I knew the style was going to be unconventional, and that the plot was going to be depressing. Already I anticipated having a hard time with it.

As it turned out, however, it only took a few pages to get me completely into it. MacCarthy’s prose was eloquent and moving. I didn’t have a hard time with his refusal to use dialogue tags or quotation marks, because he wrote so well it was clear what was going on at every moment. The story doesn’t really go anywhere, but there is something fascinating in watching the characters live and survive among the unusual and seemingly impossible circumstances. I don’t particularly sympathize with the characters; what is captivating is how they deal with the situations, and what they reveal about themselves as they face challenges.

I have had conversations with people who are turned off by writing styles that aren’t easily accessible. I, too, am not particularly fond of unconventionality, especially when it seems forced or unreasonable. I don’t think that is the case with “The Road,” even though I can’t exactly explain why it had to be written this way, nor do I think MacCarthy has an answer for that. But the thought that occurred in my head as I was reading it was that somebody had to write like this—that there cannot be only one way to write the novel. Readers shouldn’t set any expectation on what the pages should look like when they open the book. It should always be an adventure to discover what style the author chooses to employ in order to tell a particular story. Because I didn’t have a hard time with the style in which this book was written, I appreciated it, not because I thought it was genius, but because the form must constantly change and grow in order for it to survive, and because somebody found a way to change it and make it work superbly.