From Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”

"Just remember that the things you put in your head are there forever, he said.

You forget some things don't you?

Yes. You forget the things you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget."

This brief but powerful exchange between the Man and the Boy, father and son wandering a ruined, post-apocalyptic world, illustrates perfectly to me the flaws in our memory. We do not get to choose which memories stand salient in our minds, and sometimes the most difficult ones persist no matter how hard we try to move past them.

McCarthy is, in my opinion, a master at balancing a sort of rhythmic beauty with a blunt, unapologetic brutality in his writing. His novels are as beautiful and vibrant as they are disturbing and dark.