Despite the tension that has developed between the father and son walking through the post apocalyptic wilderness there is a moment of brightness.
An undiscovered bunker full of food and provisions is lying in wait for them. But that brings it own complications – do you stay and enjoy the supplies and then head off all the time feeling like a sitting duck? Do you grab what you can but then regret it when the food runs out and that large supply room was left abandoned?
McCarthy is able to get you to think like this because of the quality of the description. By now you know this is a world of meagre resources, where luck plays a crucial role in determining life and death. A country where cannibals walk the land looking for new flesh. And a world that occasionally has memories that evoke a past that has gone forever.
Compelling but because of the Christmas activity something that is being read as slowly as the father and son walk the road.
More tomorrow…
