Suttree

by Cormac McCarthy

This compelling novel has as its protagonist Cornelius Suttree, living alone and in exile in a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River close by Knoxville. He stays at the edge of an outcast community inhabited by eccentrics, criminals and the poverty-stricken. Rising above the physical and human squalor around him, his detachment and wry humour enable him to survive dereliction and destitution with dignity.

`Suttree contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish imaginative flair reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor' Times Literary Supplement

`Suttree marks McCarthy's closest approach to autobiography and is probably the funniest and most unbearably sad of his books' Stanley Booth

• ISBN10: 0099771217
• ISBN13: 9780099771210
• Publish Date: 1 January 1998 (first published 1 January 1979)
• Publish Status: Cancelled
• Out of Print: 17 October 2003
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I feel like I could talk myself up to five stars or down to three, and it’s all emotional gut responses, which is what I least like to trust. Parts of it had my heart immediately. Parts of it were too heavy a burden to bear. The pall of oppression and wretchedness, at times, escalating to pure fantasy, not reality. Suttree self-inflicting his descent into the darkest depths.

The parts I loved most are the parts I always love most with McCarthy, the sweet, dumb clarity of youth, the luck and love in a bloodbath world. Harrogate the melon-mounter, the pearl-hustler’s daughter. Which speaks to nothing except my own youth, I’m sure. Thinking that McCarthy shows more of his youth here, not yet in full possession of the balance and wisdom to come.

But I like feeling uncertain about this. McCarthy puts a hell of a lot into Suttree the man. It will stick with me.

And what happens then?
When?
After you’re dead.
Dont nothin happen. You’re dead.
You told me once you believed in God.
The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I’d like to see him for a minute if I could.
What would you say to him?
Well, I think I’d just tell him. I’d say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there’s just one thing I’d like to know. And he’ll say: What’s that? And then I’m goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together.
Suttree smiled. What do you think he’ll say?
The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it, he said. I dont believe there is a answer.