Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13050 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
By the author of the critically acclaimed "Border Trilogy", "Outer Dark" is a novel at once mythic and starkly evocative, set in an unspecified place in Appalachia sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; the brother leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution. "McCarthy is a master stylist, perhaps without equal in American letters ...In his hands, everything is done with consummate skill" - "Village Voice". "McCarthy has made the fabulous real, the ordinary mysterious" - "New York Times". "A profound parable that ultimately speaks to any society in any time" - "Time".

Customer Reviews

The best book I have read in 20 years!
This is the second Cormac McCarthy book I've read, my first being "The Road", which I felt to be a pretty bleak piece, though no less rewarding for that. I enjoyed it enough to try another, and picked "Outer Dark" pretty much at random. Within the first few paragraphs, this book had me completely hooked. The story is a very simple one, employing few (if any) plot complexities to keep the reader interested. Instead, it's the rich portrayal of the protagonists, a varied and fascinating cast of supporting characters, and a darkly evocative "Southern Gothic" setting that keep you utterly transfixed and eager for more. Constant throughout is a carefully balanced sense of foreboding which underpins the story as it builds to its somewhat predictable yet devastating conclusion. This is, without a doubt, the best book I have read in the last 20 years, prompting me to order every other work by this highly talented author! If each of them is half as good as "Outer Dark", I have many hours of wonderful reading ahead!

Excellent early McCarthy
I came to this having read several of McCarthy's later books. It is fascinating from this point of view, showing some of the earlier themes and images that one finds recurring throughout his work. One doesn't get as close to the characters in this book as in his later work and the author almost seems to want us to keep our distance and reserve our sympathy (this isn't necessarily a shortcoming, its just how it has been written - although I expect some will find it frustrating). The language as in all his work is absolutely superb. The content is fairly chilling but an excellent read.

Bleak, disturbing...and brilliant!
Outer Dark, Cormac McCarthy's second novel, is an apocalyptic and disturbing story revolving around the separate journey's made by its two protagonists. The book opens with Rinthy Holme baring her brother, Culla's, child. Not wanting the baby Culla leaves it in the woods to die where it is rescued by a tinker. On discovery of this Rinthy sets out to find her child, while Culla embarks on his own ambiguous quest. McCarthy's brilliant novel blurs the line between reality and fantasy, creating some characters who are painfully real and other who seem to have descended straight from hell, itself. The book is full of superb dialogue that is both full of wit and menace, bringing it's characters vividly to life. However despite the humour the novel is shot through with foreboding, and the closer you get to the end the more distant a happy ending becomes. The climax is both shocking and disturbing, and will anger as many as it fascinates. But throughout McCarthy proves, once again, that nobody writes better about difficult rural life and its people. Outer Dark is challenging and bleak. But like all of McCarthy's novels it rewards your time and patience.