Before: Reading it quickly before I see the movie again, just for those few bits that aren't in the Cohens' seemingly very accurate screen translation. 
 After: as bleak as The Road, in its way (arguably bleaker in final outlook), and with much the same spare and devastating prose. Cormac McCarthy seems intent on sounding the depths of an American abyss and does it quite well. Plenty of other authors do this, but McCarthy seems to do it more gracefully, and to have more of a moral center behind it. 
 Incidentally, the book does add perspective to the film and I have a much clearer idea of the film's themes now. Time to see it again.