Years after The Drought has come, a young boy runs away from home. He has his reasons. After hiding from the people sent out to find him on the only motorcycle, and worn down by hunger, thirst and fear, he bumps into the shepherd; an old man with a dog, a dozen goats, and a donkey and not much else. "Come on if you're coming," the shepherd says, and together they walk on.

Anyone wanting to make the ubiquitous The Road comparison will hear no argument from me; not just the setting - though Carrasco wisely makes his maybe-kinda-post-apocalypse much vaguer than McCarthy's - but the heavy Christian imagery as well. But I guess you get that for free when one of your main characters is a taciturn but merciful shepherd known only as "Señor". Carrasco's language is the main draw here; concise, intense, raw, almost sandblasted to the point where you find yourself grateful for the occasional well of humanity he finds. Yes, he repeats himself a bit (enough with the urine already), and some of his similes a bit overworked, but he mostly makes it work, enough so that I blaze through the novel in three sittings up to the inevitable violent showdown. 4-