Recommendation: The Road

I rarely read fiction books (1/year at best). And when I do, it's always because someone recommended a specific book for a specific reason. This is my attempt to pass the recommendation along.

To put it mildly, the last few years in America have been strange. I grew up believing that parents would go to the ends of the Earth to protect their children, but that isn't always so anymore. This surprises me because I thought the biological imperative would be so embedded so deeply that no cultural trends could override it.

While The Road by Cormac McCarthy is set in a depressing post-apocalyptic world, I found the relationship between the father and his son to be inspirational. It's a remarkable example of the power of unconditional parental love, fueling the dad to push through even the grimmest of circumstances to keep the boy alive.

Yes, it's fiction. But I'd like to think that most parents have this untapped well within them. That's what gives me hope, even if we as a society face another pandemic or another era of mass division.

I'd recommend reading it, especially if you've become a parent.