Child of God
Book description
In this taut, chilling novel from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road, Lester Ballard—a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape—haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.
While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity,…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Child of God as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
When I worked for a daily newspaper, I covered the trial of serial killer Richard Biegenwald. Unlike a lot of serial killers, who tend to be loners, Biegenwald was married. He seemed fairly normal, except for his habit of occasionally killing people and burying them in his mother’s backyard. Serial killers, people who don’t kill in self-defense, or to protect someone from harm, but just because they like killing, have always fascinated me. Sitting in court, twenty feet from a real, live serial killer, was intensely interesting and not a little creepy.
Having covered the trial of a serial killer,…
From Jill's list on Southern Gothic that are dark and twisted.
I’m not the world’s biggest Cormac McCarthy fan. I enjoyed The Road and Suttree, but found a few others I’ve read of his something of a slog, so I was happy to give this one a chance. It’s a poetically written book about a necrophiliac who lives in a cave surrounded by his victims. I like how the main character, already on the edge, continues to unravel as the book unfolds and how McCarthy writes him with sympathetic detail.
From Andersen's list on dark fiction for aspiring sociopaths.
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