Any changes will be communicated to regular readers. Communications about the group are posted in the Winona Daily News and The Winona Post. Books are purchased through least expensive venues and distributed to readers. New readers are welcome at any time. One need not read the books to attend the discussions. For information, contact 507-689-2440.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy is the November selection of the Minnesota City Community Readers. McCarthy is also the author of No Country for Old Men.

Literally a “dark” story ( the landscape is covered with ash which obscures the sun and the moon), the story is also figuratively a landscape that may impress some as hopeless. A father and son wander the earth searching for warmer climate and the ocean following an unnamed cataclysmic event.

The steady plot of the story follows the events of the effects of near starvation, of increasingly serious illness of the father, of the impending dangers from other persons and climate. Most interestingly, readers are confronted with their own large questions of life and death because of the thoughts and actions of the father and son. Which person is the moral center of the story?

The novel ends with a change of characters following the father’s death; the son continues with another of the “good guys” “carrying the fire.” This poses the largest question. Does the novel offer a life affirming message? Is the message hopeful? Some critics think this is “the best” novel of the last twenty five years. It offers readers a challenge to examine values often pronounced but seldom experienced.