The End of The Road

The End of the Road is American writer John Barth's second novel, first published in 1958 with a revised edition in 1967. Its first-person protagonist, Jacob Horner, suffers from nihilistic paralysis—an inability to choose a course of action. As part of a schedule of unorthodox therapies, Horner's nameless Doctor has him take a teaching job at a local teachers' college. There Horner befriends the super-rational existentialist Joe Morgan and his wife Rennie, with whom he becomes entangled in a love triangle, with tragic results. The book deals with several issues that were controversial at the time, including racial segregation and abortion.

Critics and Barth himself often pair the novel with its predecessor, The Floating Opera (1956); both were written in 1955, and are available together in a one-volume edition. Both are philosophical novels; The End of the Road continues with the conclusions made about absolute values by the protagonist of The Floating Opera, and takes these ideas "to the end of the road". Barth wrote both novels in a realistic mode, in contrast to Barth's better-known metafictional, fabulist and postmodern works from the 1960s and later, such as The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) and Lost in the Funhouse (1968).

A 1970 film loosely based on the novel stars James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach and Harris Yulin in their earliest feature roles. It was rated X, partially because of a graphic abortion scene.