I’m sure Cormac McCarthy has been dying to see if this accolade would come his way. His 1992 novel, All the Pretty Horses, is now 25 years old, but I just got around to it this year. Something about spending a month in West Texas made it seem like an appropriate companion.
And it was. McCarthy captures the harsh beauty of the terrain and peoples it with characters that are hard-bitten, philosophical, and even funny. I never expected to laugh so much as I did reading the dialogue of Jimmy Blevins, one of the three teenagers at the center of the story. What you wind up with at the end of this reading experience is a fine meditation on home – the place Americans have always had a hard time locating.
As for Billy Bob Thornton’s 2002 movie of the novel–well, I’d give that a miss.
So congrats to Cormac on making #7 on the 2017 Best Reads countdown. I hear Dostoyevsky is looking to make the 2018 Heartlands’ list.
Click on the title link above for my review of the book.
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