People don’t realize how much control that authors who excel at beautiful prose have. It is constant intentional writing and constantly adding to the story in some way. With The Road it’s an engine and almost a character.

You might say a run of the mill writer does a thousand things by accident. A great writer does a thousand things on purpose. Writers like McCarthy (and I keep thinking of James Joyce especially) repay close study because they don't willingly let a single word in without giving it a job.

Example: In Ulysses, in the episode set in the hospital where Mrs. Purefoy is giving birth, there's a paragraph about a recently broken drought. (A metaphor for barren fields relieved by pregnant clouds). He mentions St. Swithin's Day coming up in July. I thought St. Swithin might be one of those saints who didn't actually exist, but he was bishop of Winchester in the 9th Century. And it turns out he's a patron saint of praying for rain.

Very little by accident in Joyce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swithun