A Critic's Rereading

"In my review of The Road in [The Telegraph] , I wrote: 'McCarthy's publisher is presenting The Road as his masterpiece; it's not, and in fact he's probably already written that.' I had in mind the labyrinthine structuring of Blood Meridian, or his understanding of the arcane workings of sexual love in The Border Trilogy. But I was mistaken; The Road, which has been awarded this year's Pulitzer prize for fiction, is the crystalline culmination and encapsulation of everything McCarthy has written so far (I'm tempted to say of everything that's ever been written). It calls me back and each time I find wonders. It makes me tremble, even on my 20th visit. "

- Niall Griffiths