- Hardcover: 93 pages
- Publisher: Ecco; 1 edition (Sep 15 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0880014814
- ISBN-13: 978-0880014816
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 13.9 x 1.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 259 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #741,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Booklist
McCarthy completed this screenplay in 1976, and the 16mm film, directed by Richard Pearce, was broadcast on PBS that year. The story is about the deep-seated, unending, undefined but palpable pain that exists between the Greggs, a wealthy family that owns and operates a cotton mill in post^-Civil War South Carolina, and the McEvoys, a poor family that works at the mill. This pain is made visual when Robert McEvoy, the only McEvoy male offspring, is involved in an accident, which may or may not have been caused by James Gregg, that results in the amputation of his leg. Now in the open, their silent battle can rage. This is a monumental small work for McCarthy, lesser in scope and impact than his All the Pretty Horses (1992) or The Crossing (1994) but bearing in full measure his gift--that ability to fit complex and universal emotions into ordinary lives and still preserve all of their power and significance. Bonnie Smothers
Book Description
In the Spring of 1975 the film director Richard Pearce approached Cormac McCarthy with the idea of writing a screenplay. Though already a widely acclaimed novelist, the author of such modern classics as The Orchard Keeper and Child of God, McCarthy had never before written a screenplay. Using nothing more than a few photographs in the footnotes to a 1928 biography of a famous pre-Civil War industrialist as inspiration, the author and Pearce together roamed the mill towns of the South researching their subject. One year later McCarthy finished The Gardener's Son,a taut, riveting drama of impotence, rage, and ultimately violence spanning two generations of mill owners and workers, fathers and sons, during the rise and fall of one of America's most bizarre utopian industrial experiments. Produced as a two-hour film and broadcast on PBS in 1976, The Gardener's Son recieved two Emmy Award nominations and was shown at the Berlin and Edinburgh Film Festivals. This is the first appearance of the film script in book form.
Set in Graniteville, South Carolina, The Gardener's Son is the tale of two families: the Greggs, a wealthy family that owns and operates the local cotton mill, and the McEvoys, a family of mill workers beset by misfortune. The action opens as Robert McEvoy, a young mill worker, is having his leg amputated -- the limb mangled in an accident rumored to have been caused by James Gregg, son of the mill's founder. McEvoy, crippled and isolated, grows into a man with a "troubled heart"; consumed by bitterness and anger, he deserts both his job and his family.
Returning two years later at the news of his mother's terminal illness, Robert McEvoy arrives only to confront the grave diggers preparing her final resting place. His father, the mill's gardener, is now working on the factory line, the gardens forgotten. These proceedings stoke the slow burning rage McEvoy carries within him, a fury that ultimately consumes both the McEvoys and the Greggs.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant as expected, but read his other books first, Sep 23 1998
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Gardener's Son (Hardcover)
Having read everything else by Cormac McCarthy, I turned to _The Gardener's Son_ and was not disappointed. It has often been said but bears repeating that McCarthy is America's greatest living author, and I recommend his novels to anyone who enjoys beautiful writing. But I wouldn't suggest this screenplay unless, like me, you're already addicted to McCarthy and are looking for another "fix". It's a short work, fairly expensive for its brief length, and the plot is so sparse that you really have to be a fan of his style to feel as though you've benefitted from reading it. I hesitate to give less than five stars to anything by Cormac McCarthy, but this screenplay is essentially too little of a great thing to merit the unqualified recommendation that I give to all his other books.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Appetizer, April 25 2000
By Stephen Quinn "Steve" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Gardener's Son (Hardcover)
I agree with the other reviewer who says that you should read McCarthy's books first; that's a must. I found this screenplay interesting, but a bit disappointing in places. Where I detected McCarthy's voice most was in the stage directions and monologues, and a few bits of the dialogue. The power the sysnopses mention was a bit lost on me; I actually found this work quite cryptic, and was puzzled by the flap copy's assertion that the accident was "rumored to have been caused by James Gregg"--I couldn't find even a hint of that. Maybe I missed it?In any case, a good little snippet. Now I have to go back to the novels...
4.0 out of 5 stars
An odd turn for Mccarthy, but one that he pulls off well, Feb 16 2012
By jafrank - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Gardener's Son (Hardcover)
This is rooted in a pretty well-worn historical milieu. There aren't really many mill towns left these days (at least not that I know of), but their corruption, greed, and sick, gilded-age paternalism have had some pretty horrible resonances into our own times. Mccarthy does a really good job of conjuring just how primal, how old the sense of economic disparity is here. It's like watching a grim old sepia photograph brought to life. The Gardener's son isn't simplistic, its just blunt, and direct. Even if its character's motivations are just hinted at rather than really delved into. If you've ever worked in a mill town or had some older friends or relatives who have, you'll understand it all too well.
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