Up the Creek Book Club
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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy
December 2000
Synopsis
"This is the first novel in a projected 'Border Trilogy'. In the spring of 1950, after the death of his grandfather, sixteen year old John Grady Cole is evicted from the Texas ranch where he grew up. He and another boy, Lacy Rawlins, head for Mexico on horseback, riding south until they finally turn up at a vast ranch in mountainous Coahuila, the Hacienda de la Purisima, where they sign on as vaqueros. John Grady's unusual talent for breaking, training and understanding horses becomes crucial to the hacendado Don Hector's ambitious breeding program. For John Grady, La Purisima is a paradise, complete with its Eve, Don Hector's daughter, Alejandra." (New York Times Book Review)
"All the Pretty Horses', the first volume of the Borders Trilogy, tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border Mexico beckons, beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off to an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood."
Reviews
- "Set in west Texas and Mexico, after the Second World War, 'All the Pretty Horses' is a superb book, touching on matters that are never allowed access to serious novels. The prose is both raw and transcendentally lyric, and should gather Carmac McCarthy the attention he has long deserved." (Reader's Catalog)
- "All McCarthy's books are admirable, but this one is likable too. Without ever taking his eyes off the general scheme of his tale, the writer lingers over every scene, sculpting each to its essence. This hymn to youth and times past is sweet-tempered but never sentimental, accessible without compromise. While it may well mystify the fans of McCarthy's darker, more savage books, it should nonetheless attract the larger audience he deserves. A modern-day Western full of horses and gunplay and romance, it transcends the bounds of its genre with rambunctious, high-spirited, bottomless inventiveness. (This novel) is a true American original." (Malcolm Jones, Newsweek)
- "This book is about retribution. In the end, justice is served... " (Sven Michael Davison, Author of 'Blockbuster')
Book Club Rating and Comments
Everyone seemed to really like this book, though it's style is somewhat difficult to read until you get used to it. It is a good story. Most are anxious to read the other two books in the trilogy.
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Cormac McCarthy
- 'Blood Meridian: or the Evening Redness in the West'
- 'Cities of the Plain'
- 'The Crossing'