“and held his cold hand”: A Map of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
The opening sentence of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is one of the most remarkable sentences I have ever read. “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.” The line distills so much of what the rest of the book goes on to explore. The father reaching out to feel his son breathing in the dark. Needing to confirm that his son is still breathing. Needing to confirm his position as his son’s protector. Drawing strength and purpose from his son’s presence. Human contact in the darkness and the cold.
When I first read this line, my own young son was asleep on my chest and I could feel him breathing against me. Something about my convergence with the world of the book imprinted the line, and the novel, on my heart. I’m not sure how many times I’ve read the book. Enough times that I try to look for something new each time I pick it up. When I read it this summer, I decided to track every instance of the father and son touching.
Many things struck me as I compiled the list. I thought about how many different ways the father and son touch. I realized that their first touch — the father holding aloft his newborn son as the world dies, “the scrawny red body so raw and naked”— is recorded in one of the novel’s few flashbacks. Their last touch is also…
