On an Upper Byrdcliffe Road walk in Woodstock this past summer, I noted to my friends, Perry Beekman and David Gordon, the recent death of Robert Gottlieb, the most acclaimed book editor of the last 50+ years. I’ve previously mentioned on the podcast, Gottlieb’s really great memoir, Avid Reader.

David noted that writer Cormac McCarthy had also then recently died. David expressed enthusiasm for McCarthy’s great works over the years. I had read McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, The Road, many years prior and I still get a chill in my bones when I think about it.

I asked David whether he would like to come on the podcast to commemorate Cormac McCarthy and to talk about The Road, and the rest of McCarthys great works. And here we are. Published in 2006, The Road is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic and frightening warning, but it’s also a story of the love between a father and a son and of the lengths to which a father might travel for his son, literally and figuratively. It’s emotional, chilling and also beautifully written.