Book summary

Cormac McCarthy's 1968 novel (his second) begins with the birth of a child to Rinthy Holme--a baby boy, who is taken off to the woods and left to die by Culla, Rinthy's brother--who is also the baby's father. Believing her son to be alive, Rinthy undertakes a quest to find him, and Culla begins to roam the Appalachian countryside on a mysterious quest of his own. He is menaced by three strangers--symbols perhaps of Culla's guilt--who commit heinous crimes for which Culla is blamed. McCarthy's dark tale has been compared to the kind of harsh folk fables that have traditionally been part of mountain culture.

Media reviews

"A perfectly executed work of the imagination..[.McCarthy] has made the fabulous real, the ordinary mysterious."