I Will Not Send You To The Darkness Alone...

"You forget what you want to remember, and remember what you want to forget" - The Man, to his Son, in "The Road"

In all likelihood, there aren't many people around in America that have read as many books as I have. That's not meant to sound arrogant. Rather, it's just math. I used to be paid to read books and screenplays, so over an 8 year period, I probably read 1200-1500 novels. Add in a bunch of Stephen King, Hardy Boys and mystery books as an adolescent, an English degree, a genuine love of reading, etc, and the number rises.... So aside from longtime literary agents, readers and proofreaders, I've probably read books more than most Americans. Then again, that's not a very high bar to cross these days, and whether I've internalized most of those books, or can even remember them, is another story entirely. And not a very good story, sadly.

The downside of doing that kind of work, which I did for so many years, is that I never had time to read books for my own pleasure. The only exception was John Irving novels. Irving's my literary idol, and I'd put everything aside, from food to sleep, to devour his latest books which took him so long to create. Unfortunately, the last couple of books could've used far more time in the womb, because they came out pretty much stillborn. I wonder if he'll be able to climb that artistic mountain again... the last two books fell so, so flat.

But now that I've been out of that career for some time, I'm finally finding the pleasure in reading fiction again. And I just read Cormac McCarthy's, "The Road". Which was perhaps the most devastating reading process I've ever experienced. Or endured, as the case may be. It was an utterly terrible, haunting, transcendent, emotionally wrecking experience.

The book follows an unnamed father and son wandering in a post-apocalyptic America, trying to reach the coast while avoiding dangerous marauders who sporadically dot the countryside - and the Road. Not much happens aside from their search for food, shelter and warmth, and the considerations of their slowly crumbling moral compass in an amoral, empty world.

It's a novel about endurance and morality in a world that's been laid utterly bare, but more than anything, it's a father and son story. About how a father will do anything to keep his son alive, even though he knows there's nothing at the end of the road for them. There is no hope, there is no future.

In the current state of my life, this has a poignant, very real resonance for me. There are times when I feel like me and my son are alone on a road just like that, with no one to turn to or rely on. This thought is, of course, complete hogwash, but in my darkest, solitary moments, it somehow rings true. And every page and passage tore my heart out, with the spare dialogue, the poetic depictions of a world without life, sustenance or possibility.

"I will do what I promised, he whispered. No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone."

I don't think I've ever had a passage from a book cause me to spontaneously burst into huge, wracking sobs that wouldn't subside for a number of minutes... at least not until I encountered those words. I was crying so loudly I thought the neighbors would be concerned.

The man says this to his son as he holds him during the cold night, convinced that his boy won't survive until dawn, and I often think of my own son the same way... and yet it is I that needs someone to say those very words to me.