By the author of the critically acclaimed "Border Trilogy", "Outer Dark" is a novel at once mythic and starkly evocative, set in an unspecified place in Appalachia sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; the brother leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution. "McCarthy is a master stylist, perhaps without equal in American letters ...In his hands, everything is done with consummate skill" - "Village Voice". "McCarthy has made the fabulous real, the ordinary mysterious" - "New York Times". "A profound parable that ultimately speaks to any society in any time" - "Time".
Vivid and brutal, and as always the dialogue sings. It lacks the beating heart that’s in McCarthy’s other work, but there’s something else going on here, something aimless and blunt and it would crush you if it had more heart. It requires detachment and observation. Look elsewhere for redemption. This is a damn good wandering tale.
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10 December, 2011:
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10 December, 2011:
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