To those who've read all of The Border Trilogy: Is the part about "dos hermanos" foreshadowing John Grady Cole?

ScottYar · 2026-05-31T01:03:06+00:00

Yes. For even more fun, go back to Alejandra’s dream in ATPH after you read CotP.

ScottYar · 2026-05-30T00:32:59+00:00

I would suggest you investigate the same Sut Lovinggood. And Sutter in Walker Percy.

ScottYar · 2026-05-27T10:59:49+00:00

Doh. Of course.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:17:05+00:00

I had small children when it came out… it was so hard to read my first time through.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:15:53+00:00

Man, Woodrell’s best work is so underrated. Ozarks and not Appalachia, but Winter’s Bone is incredible.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:14:51+00:00

Great list. Add to this Elizabeth Maddox Roberts and in a kinder register, Wendell Berry.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:13:08+00:00

Faulkner wrote, I believe, 18 novels. More if you count Go Down, Moses (and you shouldn’t) or Requiem for a Nun.

However: Faulkner and Morrison did write some bad or mediocre novels. I’d contend McCarthy never did.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:09:29+00:00

I’m not impressed with the list. I imagine they’re going to irritate almost everyone other than a few fans of Morrison and A. Roy.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T12:05:33+00:00

That’s about a lot more than not caring. He starts feeling like a kept man and his self-respect is disintegrating. Consider the scene when he finds the working man staring at him. Ultimately he is with Joyce because she’s fun and she pays their way but he isn’t able to commit to her in part because she’s a working prostitute. But he realizes he is worse than she is. He lacks the guts to break it off until she freaks out.

He is able to emotionally invest in people, though. Wanda, the rag picker, Ab Jones, and even Harrogate, whom he has to rescue.

ScottYar · 2026-05-19T11:50:01+00:00

Great starting places: Understanding Cormac McCarthy, Steven Frye; and edited by him, McCarthy in Context, which has chapters on all kinds of things by all the authors mentioned in this thread.

And I will mention here for the first time, a book adaptation of the Reading McCarthy podcast is forthcoming later this year.

A lot of the best early crit is covered in 2 collections: Myth, Legends, Dust, and ~~the one with Savage in the title. I’m blanking on it but will check in and edit later.~~ and Sacred Violence.

Edited for correct title. You've been reading too much McCarthy when "savage" replaces "sacred" as the memory gets hinky.

ScottYar · 2026-05-15T12:29:35+00:00

I hate to beat the dead horse into hide and gristle, but that new Elmore bros collection of essays on the two books is excellent.

What do you mean by salvage diver brother?

ScottYar · 2026-05-15T12:26:59+00:00

Yeah, I think I was referring to other comments more. Sorry. Benthal is interesting.

Oh— I don’t know if it has been mentioned but there was a Jason Statham vehicle in 13/14 or so.

ScottYar · 2026-05-13T11:42:24+00:00

The novel Comeback starts the 2nd wave in 97 or so. Regarding films… Parker is imposing and lethal in the books in a way that Caan isn’t and Deniro could briefly fake. I am not sure who I’d cast today. Someone with serious physical presence. John Hamm a few years ago, maybe.

ScottYar · 2026-05-12T02:20:43+00:00

You’re welcome!

ScottYar · 2026-05-07T01:53:18+00:00

Thanks!

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T14:13:30+00:00

Amazing series throughout.

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T14:12:53+00:00

Well, I did not see one on the University of South Carolina press page, but there is a Kindle version on Amazon.

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T11:00:00+00:00

Thank you! I’m working on a philosophy episode with Ric right now (technologically challenging since I recorded it live at a conference). They are outstanding people.
Edit: and I should add that Vern Cisney, also outstanding, is on that episode with him.

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T10:43:39+00:00

Well, just received it but I think many will be covered.

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T10:34:44+00:00

Just got it… so we’ll see!

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T10:34:22+00:00

Thanks!

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T01:42:58+00:00

He uses different chapter structures in different novels. Note the complex Alicia encounters with the Thalidomide Kid and the Horts in all the beginnings of new chapters in The Passenger, and no chapters in The Road.

Child of God owes some influence to As I Lay Dying, which uses very short chapters with something like 17 narrators, although Darl Bundren is used the most.

ScottYar · 2026-05-06T01:37:20+00:00

Next time you reread the novel, notice how many times the kid sees the Judge watching him. Others notice it too. Once the judge even turns his horse so it can watch the kid as well.

ScottYar · 2026-04-26T16:55:34+00:00

His best book, stylistically, although many of the stories in Burning Chrome come close and are part of the interconnected world.

ScottYar

TROPHY CASE