What do you all think happened in Cormac McCarthys “The Road”?
I think it’d have to be either a nuclear holocaust or some sort of biological disaster, your other scenarios don’t fit the complete lack of animal life. He made the point several times that even the birds are gone. If it isn’t nuclear it could be something like a super form of DDT destroying the food chain, although I think nuclear is more likely, although it doesn’t quite work either. I think the author intended this ambiguity. The book deliberately avoids giving you many details about the disaster or even the world that is around them. A few hints about cannibal cults to keep things frightening and that’s about it. Tons of books have been written in a post-apocalypse world, McCarthy deliberately avoids giving you the detail to shift the focus onto the relationship between the man and his son. If he’d given the details of the disaster, it would have been a lesser book, merely yet another survivalist novel, one of thousands. I think the vagueness is its strength and what makes it a gre
