The Crossing: Amazon.ca: Cormac McCarthy: Books

Product Description

From Amazon

The opening section of The Crossing, book two of the Border Trilogy, features perhaps the most perfectly realized storytelling of Cormac McCarthy's celebrated career. Like All the Pretty Horses, this volume opens with a teenager's decision to slip away from his family's ranch into Mexico. In this case, the boy is Billy Parham, and the catalyst for his trip is a wolf he and his father have trapped, but that Billy finds himself unwilling to shoot. His plan is to set the animal loose down south instead.

This is a McCarthy novel, not Old Yeller, and so Billy's trek inevitably becomes more ominous than sweet. It boasts some chilling meditations on the simple ferocity McCarthy sees as necessary for all creatures who aim to continue living. But Billy is McCarthy's most loving--and therefore damageable--character, and his story has its own haunted melancholy.

Billy eventually returns to his ranch. Then, finding himself and his world changed, he returns to Mexico with his younger brother, and the book begins meandering. Though full of hypnotically barren landscapes and McCarthy's trademark western-gothic imagery (like the soldier who sucks eyes from sockets), these latter stages become tedious at times, thanks partly to the female characters, who exist solely as ghosts to haunt the men.

But that opening is glorious, and the whole book finally transcends its shortcomings to achieve a grim and poignant grandeur. --Glen Hirshberg --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

This second volume of McCarthy's Border Trilogy-an 11-week PW bestseller-follows two teenage boys across the American Southwest and Mexico in the years before WWII.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

fiction read in 2010(2)

best(1)

blood meridian(1)

conscience(1)

cormac mccarthy(1)

epic(1)

literature(1)

masterpiece(1)

ponerology(1)

psychopathy(1)

Customer Reviews

52 Reviews

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (52 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Another McCarthy Masterpiece, Feb 23 2004

By

Z. Blume (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Crossing: Border Trilogy (2) (Paperback)

I loved "All the Pretty Horses" and came to "The Crossing" with high expectations, yet I wasn't disappointed. "The Crossing" begins with teenage Billy Parham attempting to return a wolf, trapped on his New Mexico ranch, to its native home in Mexico. Along the way, the wolf is killed and Billy gets in trouble, and upon his return home he finds it abandoned, his horses stolen and evidence that his family was murdered. It is a violent and dramatic introduction to the book, but the action and description is phenomenal.

After this section, Billy finds his younger brother unharmed and they decide to return to Mexico in search of their family's horses. Once they have made their crossing, they face several trials and adventures and they experience everything from love to betrayal to death. All of this is expertly described by McCarthy, who is simply and incredible story teller and writer. This is a superb sequel to "All the Pretty Horses" and again makes the reader long for the days of the open frontier. This is a great book for any reader.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I have read in many years, Dec 26 2003

By

"mypinion" (Southeast USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crossing: Border Trilogy (2) (Paperback)

First: I read the Border Trilogy this week. I haven't read any other McCarthy literature. I was told that if I liked Larry McMurtry, Steinbeck, and Salinger then I would love McCarthy. The first thing I bought was The Crossing. Upon realizing it was part of a trilogy with All The Pretty Horses as the first installment, I was very disappointed. I had no intrest in a Hollywood western novel. But, I grudgingly purchased All The Pretty Horses and read it. (Have not watched movie). That said...

Cormac McCarthy far surpasses any living writer with which I have come in contact. If I had the masterful ability with language that he does, I could express that in a much more emphatic manner.

Any reviewer who complains about things such as puncuation, grammer, or spanish-I feel compelled to respond with this:
1. Would you prefer that all painters created exact duplicates of their subject matter? Are we not better, as a society and as a species, for taking our interpretations further and showing those things we are already intimate with in a fresh or different way? Would you say 'cubism', for instance, is too complicated for you?
2. Are you 25 years old or less? Do you have any true ability to surive in a harsh world without parental aide? The struggles depicted in this novel would, of course, be difficult to fathom in that scenario, especially when teamed with non-traditional grammar and punctuation and a lack of a personal translator.
3. If neither of the two applies to a negative reviewer, perhaps your solution would be ritalin. It is supposed to assist in 'focus'.

On to the review:

The Crossing's main character is just the opposite of the first installment of this triogy's main character. Billy Parnham will never get anything he for which he fights. He will always align himself most closely with a losing cause. It seems that he is completely a-sexual, and the closest bonds he forms almost always precede the demise of said character/animal.

There is something striking in the fact that the moral stance, character, sense of justice are nearly identical for John Grady Cole (the main character in All the Pretty Horses) and Billy. Yet John wins, and Billy loses. Repeatedly. Yet it is Billy who survives all contests, all tragedies, all of his closest bonds. Billy's 'heart' is never joined with any group or idea or convention larger than land and animals. At some points his 'heart' is rejected; but is his survival possibly attributed to his lack of truly 'giving' his 'heart' to any passionate cause? The passion Billy gives us in the final scene of The Crossing, the self-realization and anger and utter despairing are so exceedingly rare that your tears are nearly required after finishing this book. The wolf's climax was another section that makes this book stunning and irresistable.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars Stark, substantial...Exotic, familiar, Dec 26 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Crossing: Border Trilogy (2) (Paperback)

I finished the border trilogy this evening.
The final scene of The Crossing which depicts a tragic self-realization for Billy Parnham may leave the reader with a thumping heart, a feeling of bleak despair and a sense of emotional exhaustion--but--unless the reader has untreated attention deficit disorder, it should also do this: Invoke that sated feeling one gets after a stark but substantial, exotic but familiar feast.
As someone who has never read a book twice, this one could be read many more times than that and have deep, new, meaning derived each time.
As stated, if you do not have the focus to enjoy this amazing work, it truly is your own personal loss.
That said, I wish everyone I knew had read it--there is so much to discuss. I recommend the entire Border Trilogy.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 52 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 113 reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Mexico native reviews
This is the second book I've read by McCarthy. I was born in southwest New Mexico and grew up in the area,more particularly the bootheel of New Mexico where Billy lived with his... Read more

Published on Feb 25 2007 by Charles F. Prevost

5.0 out of 5 stars keen poetic novel, digs into your soul to leave a mark
In this breath-taking coming-of-age story set on the Mexican border early in the twentieth century, Billy Parham's faith in a Godly natural order of things brings him head-to-head... Read more

Published on Aug 13 2003 by Savanna Reid