Book summary

The third and last volume of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, CITIES OF THE PLAIN continues the story of Billy Pawson, the cowboy with the heart of an outlaw. Billy becomes involved in the relationship between his friend and fellow ranch-hand John Grady--hero of ALL THE PRETTY HORSES--and a Mexican prostitute under the control of a brutal, violent pimp. Billy's obsession with being a kind of savior who rescues the down-and-out ultimately proves to be a destructive force. At the end of the novel (and the trilogy) Billy is an old man telling his story to a stranger he meets on the road--a story he has come no closer to understanding, and one in which good does not triumph. The title refers to the Biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, places where nothing but evil is to be found. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998.

Media reviews

" In 'Cities of the Plain' McCarthy sustains the momentum, and once again provides a terrific read. But the romance takes up a greater portion of the plot, and one begins to miss the simple evocation of cowboy life that is so stirring in the earlier novels."