Cities of the Plain: Border Trilogy (3) (Border Trilogy, #3)

by Cormac McCarthy

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The third volume of the award-winning Border Trilogy, from the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road • A darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier

The setting is New Mexico in 1952, where John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands. To the North lie the proving grounds of Alamogordo; to the South, the twin cities of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. Their life is made up of trail drives and horse auctions and stories told by campfire light. It is a life that is about to change forever, and John Grady and Billy both know it.

The catalyst for that change appears in the form of a beautiful, ill-starred Mexican prostitute.  When John Grady falls in love, Billy agrees—against his better judgment—to help him rescue the girl from her suavely brutal pimp. The ensuing events resonate with the violence and inevitability of classic tragedy. Hauntingly beautiful, filled with sorrow, humor and awe, Cities of the Plain is a genuine American epic.

Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

• ISBN10: 0679747192
• ISBN13: 9780679747192
• Publish Date: 25 May 1999 (first published 1 January 1998)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780679747192

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Like finding yourself back in the arms of old friends. It’s why I saved the book for so long, because I knew it was going to be so good to savor: my two favorite McCarthy characters, Billy Parham and John Grady Cole, together at last. Too good to be true. It never goes huge in scope. It stays small, which is perfect. And the epilogue veers a little unnecessarily, but who could care less? I’d sit and listen to John Grady and Billy talk all day long, and that’s what the rest of the book is.

(It also makes me sad, that William Gay passed without pairing up Nathan Winer and Fleming Bloodworth. Oh, what a book that would be too.)