McCarthy opens this book with one new, one oft-used technique of his here: movement.
A boy is sleeping, his father reaches out and touches him. This is unusual tenderness from McCarthy or his characters. Amid the greyness of a barren dawn, the bond between the two is thus established from page one.
But they are on a journey, waking up after spending a night alongside a desolate road that still hints of danger, hinted at by both the father’s nightmare and his binocular viewing of the morning. In several other books, there is a road, or a path, a boat, a walk, a gypsy caravan.
Movement, motion; McCarthy’s promise to take us from here to there despite the scenery painted a gloom of grey.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology