The Road has a unique writing style to set the tone of the novel.

Many of the sentences in the novel are fragments. I think the author does this to show the desperation of the situation, and to set the tone more gloomy and tiring.

When the boy and man are speaking to one another, the author does not use quotation marks for dialogue.

Because there are only two characters talking to each other most of the time, I don't think not having quotation marks was that big of a deal.

Sometimes the lack of quotation marks makes it difficult to understand who is talking when there is more than two people in the discussion. For example, when the boy, the man, and the old man on the road were talking and having the conversation I found it harder to follow the conversation.

The way that the author formats the content of the book.

The way the author writes the content to set the mood and tone of the novel.

Dark, depressing, sad, glum, melancholy, morose, dismal, sullen, ominous

Although the tone was glum and sad, the book kept the reader engaged. I actually liked the book even though it conveyed it's meaning in a dark and depressing way.

Cormac McCarthy doesn't give any names of the characters in the book. I think he does this because their names do not matter. He focuses the entire book on survival, and survival only. He doesn't want to distract readers by giving names or unnecessary detail (such as the reason for the end of the world)