Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #972674 in Books
• Published on: 1994-11-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 146 pages

Synopsis
Traces the relationships among four generations of a Black family of stonemasons in 1970s Louisville, Kentucky, and the keeping and tragic breaking of traditions from son to son.

Customer Reviews

Thank God for Cormac McCarthy
I don't usually read plays, but I bought this one because, after finishing _Cities of the Plain_, I had read all of Cormac McCarthy's novels and was hungry for more. I was not disappointed. McCarthy's genius is no less evident in _The Stonemason_ than in any of his longer works; if anything, the shorter format of drama allows him to pack even more of his brilliant writing into every page. Many authors are said to have "an ear for dialogue"; McCarthy is the only one I know, of whom this is unquestionably true. Perhaps this explains the effortlessness with which he switches between his usual milieu (novels about white cowboys and outlaws) to the material in this book (a play about black craftsmen). Any more praise I can give to this work, and to McCarthy's other writings, cannot convey the tremendous power -- the sadness and joy - that one experiences in reading them. I only hope he still has some more books left in him.