I read "The Road" after reading about it here.
Someone get that author a supply of quotation marks, eh?
Clearly, the protagonist became obsessed with just traveling, thus he left the cellar instead of consuming the supplies there. An obsession like that can keep someone going when they are too brainless from exhaustion, hunger, fear, etc to be able to think. It can also keep you from adapting to new conditions.
He had some basic skills that allowed him to gather basic materials and put together a travel kit after they lost everything, very good. He did not put together other skills that would have allowed them to travel in greater comfort, like sewing clothing from available materials, or making shoes. So far as I can see, he did not try to make or find a cart with larger wheels, it sounded like he was using grocery carts with their small, stock wheels. He waited until something was worn out or broken before searching for or cobbling together a replacement, he should have been improving their kit every night.
He did not seem to be all that eager to find ammo or a better firearm.
Their survival was more a testimony to pure, gut level determination and endurance, not skills or planning. That lack of skills and planning is what killed him in the end.
About the book:
The US east of the Appalachians scorched and all that dust in the air, sounds like a blast wave from an meteor strike, similar to the dinosaur killer. The lack of a tsunami in the coastal area hit by the blast wave indicates a land strike. That does not leave many possible places for the strike, but it is not impossible.
Not enough light for plants to grow but the temperature was warm enough for snow to melt? Nope. Should have been an ice age.
The dust thrown up should have mostly settled by the time of the book, unless the speculation that such a strike would set off an ooze type volcano eruption on the opposite side of the planet because of the crust being broken there is correct. The meteor would have had to hit water as there are very few places on earth today where land is opposite land. The meteor probably hit land, so the volcano would be underwater, and the water would moderate the atmospheric effects.
Roving slaver/cannibal gangs that long after the event? (The boy was born after the event, and was old enough to keep asking questions, even though they had been walking all day. Maybe 5 yrs old?)
The comments about rats needing humans to keep the cities warm in order for them to survive is false; rats are infesting parts of the Aleutian Islands and wiping out the birds nesting there, without central heating. Rats are also know to infest commercial freezers, including the fish freezers that are supposed to be kept at -40F.
Maybe I'll reread the book, maybe not. The "artistic choice" to "Make a Statement" by refusing to use quote marks is highly offensive and distracting.
