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4.0 out of 5 stars
Chicken Soup For The Necrophiliacs Soul, Feb 15 2002
I read McCarthy's "Blood Meridian", loved it and decided to check out some of his other works. So I picked this up with huge expectations. In the end, I was not disappointed. Now, on with the review:McCarthy seems to have taken bits of the life of Wisconsin killer, Ed Gein, combined them with bit of local (Tennessee) legend and created a very entertaining (albeit twisted) tale. While this work is a little rough-around-the-edges (after about 30 pages that becomes part of its charm), it moves at a very lively pace, and is packed with some of the most disturbing (often done in an oddly humorous way) scenes ever put down on paper. McCarthy has a great sense for rural America. Not that cute, Lake Wobegonish ruralism. This is closer to Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood". It may not be politically correct but Hillbillies are creepy and Lester Ballard, the novel's protagonist, is the creepiest Hillbilly. The great thing about Lester is that he isn't blatantly good or evil, he's just lives from day-to-day not unlike an animal. Animals need to eat, sleep, and mate. Lester eats what he can shoot, sleeps in a shack on an old mattress and mates...well, that's were Lester's problems really manifest themselves. Let's just say that to every problem, there's a solution. My only complaint is that a promising narrative device (using the locals to fill in Lester's past) is dropped early in the book. The final chapters (and, believe me, they are priceless) more than make up for this flaw. So, if you're still wondering rather this book is worth purchasing, let me just quote Lester Ballard and say "Any time you get to feelin' froggy - jump."
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by Cormac McCarthy
by Cormac McCarthy
by Cormac McCarthy
by Cormac McCarthy
by Cormac McCarthy
