Child of God (Vintage International)

Rating:
Summary: McCarthy's Argument with God
Review: The works of Cormac McCarthy, America's greatest living writer, brim with violence, cruelty and depravity. However, McCarthy is fundamentally a religious writer, whose great themes are sin, wonder and the presence (or absence) of God. Here, his narrative concerns the dark pilgrimage of one Lester Ballard, a Tennessee hillbilly who slips into murder and madness, but is still "a child of God, much like yourself." McCarthy finds his mature and distinctly American voice here, a lyrical distillate of Joyce through Faulkner, tempered with the more clipped cadences of a Hemingway, and steeped in a Catholic Jansenist gloom. A brief, riveting masterwork.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, disturbing, haunting
Review: There is no denying the strain of Faulkner that runs through McCarthy's early works; like his predecessor, McCarthy is concerned less with plot than with character and the many and sundry ways in which character and place (here, the hills of Eastern Tennessee) interact. But McCarthy is more fun to read; his prose is lean and lyric and leaves lasting images in the mind's eye. He does not shrink from displaying humanity in all its ugly (often ungodly) forms. "Child of God" is best-known for its haunting portrayal of necrophilia--few writers could address so ghastly an act in such beautiful, elegant prose. But that is one of the great joys of Cormac McCarthy's early novels--they are not so much tours de force as they are exhibitions of beautifully painted landscape and haunting, nightmarish imagery.

Rating:
Summary: Intense and disturbing
Review: This is a gripping novel that probes the breadth of human depravity and perversity while plunging the reader into a malevolent and sinister world. Lester Ballard is a deeply deranged and demented individual with sexually perverse lusts that resides in the Eastern Tennessee countryside. He's accused of rape, imprisoned for a short time, then released after which he commits unspeakable acts against his fellow man. It's doubtful his incarceration had anything to do with his behavior since it's obvious from the start this man is troubled. This is a wonderful novel filled with effective imagery and stunning descriptiveness. I found the chapter where the town sheriff, deputy and old Mr. Wade rowing the boat through the flooded town streets to be quite interesting. A recommended book, but beware the subject matter is quite graphic and might not be suitable for those without strong stomachs.