Product Description

The Border Trilogy chronicles the coming-of-age of two young men in the south west of America.

John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, two cowboys of the old school, are poised on the edge of a world about to change forever. Their journeys across the border into Mexico, each an adventure fraught with fear and pain, mark a passage into adulthood, and eventual salvation.

McCarthy's clean, hard language evokes the physicality of an unforgiving landscape, the determination of the characters who roam within it, and the vanishing world of the Old West, where blood, violence and dying are conditions of life. Beautiful and brutal, filled with sorrow and humour, The Border Trilogy is both an epic love story an exhilarating elegy for the American Frontier.

'In these three fierce, desolate, beautiful novels, McCarthy has created a masterpiece' Sunday Times

'A landmark in American literature' Guardian

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1692 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 1056 pages

Review
'In these three fierce, desolate, beautiful novels, McCarthy has created a masterpiece' Sunday Times 'A landmark in American literature' Guardian

About the Author

Cormac McCarthy is the author of ten acclaimed novels, most recently The Road. Among his honours are the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Customer Reviews

Not enough stars to do this justice
To try and do justice to these wonderfully original works in a few lines is an impossibility. The three books together make up what turns out to be a magnificent odyssey. It is a strange but ultimately rewarding journey you make with these characters. You get to know the characters well and enjoy their dry laconic wit. But the most striking feature is the main characters are so likeable. They are the best of American manhood. They stand up for all that is good in the star spangled banner. In fact they simply stand up for all that is good. If I could ride, which I can't worth a damn, then these are the young cowboys I would be happy to ride with if they'd have me.

In "All the pretty horses" we meet young John Grady Cole who with his companero set off South of the border on a whim. They meet a character called Blevins who seems like trouble and sure enough turns out to be trouble with a capital T. A mexican ranch and a pretty senorita are involved but the spectre of young Blevins comes back to haunt the good old boys. They end up suffering under Mexican justice. The rest I will not spoil other than to say it is a rollicking good read.

In "The Crossing" we meet the equally likeable Billy Parham and his younger brother. This is my personal favourite of the three books. The material is unpromising but McCarthy weaves magic with it. The boy Parham captures a wolf and decides to return it across the border to old Mexico where he stays for a bit longer than intended. On his eventual return he finds his parents have been murdered. He pauses briefly to pick up his brother and they head back over the border to hunt for the murderers. The book takes up an epic feeling as the journey takes on a never ending quest. Parham becomes a strange Quixotic figure in an alien landscape. Although he speaks perfect Spanish he and his brother seem like " Strangers in a strange land". The finale is a heart rending affair.

In the final book "Cities of the plain" Billy Parham and John Grady Cole are brought together in a magnificent story of tragic doomed love and friendships that run deep. Again much of the story takes place South of the border. It is a fitting finale to the trilogy.

All three books are breathtaking in their scope and ambition. One reviewer I read compares McCarthy with Hemingway. I will commit heresy here by saying that McCarthy is far better. His examinations of friendship, family ties and a love that crosses boundaries of state and the human heart simply amaze. All the characters are heart rendingly real. They are all too human. McCarthy will one day be recognised in the pantheon of the Worlds great writers. I love these three books as I grew to love the characters in them. That is the effect they have on you. This is a remarkable trilogy.

Be warned that Spanish is used liberally in all the books. My only knowledege of the language is through watching too many Westerns. So it would not get me far in old Mexico. Personally I found this only enhanced the feel of the book. I would also add that some knowledge of the American West is an aid, although not essential. The ghosts of the past loom quite large in his books.

My recommendation is to read this trilogy before you die.

strangely compelling trilogy of the west, but not a western!
The border in question is the Mexico/USA border in the first half of this century, but don't let any impression that these books are westerns put you off! There are indeed horse thefts, ranchers and gunfights, as you might expect, but the atmosphere is far from Shane, or indeed Blazing Saddles. I've already reviewed the first book under its own name. The second book, The Crossing, concerns 16 year old Billy Parham, who leaves home and crosses into Mexico with a wolf he has captured alive, intending to release it into the wild, only to return to find his parents murdered. He and his brother spend the rest of the book attempting to regain possession of their father's stolen horses, and meet with both friendship and brutality on the way. The third book brings Billy Parham together with the main character of the first book, John Grady Cole. All three are written in a spare prose style entirely devoid of emotion or overblown description. McCarthy does not attempt to enter his characters heads or make us empathise with them, yet by the end you do. The style is just right for the material, and for the reader. Brad Pitt reads well, in a soft smokey emotionless drawl just right for the characters.

Great literature
People who say the novel is dead, or that no one writes great literature anymore should read Cormac McCarthy, and the Border Trilogy in particular. Having read all of his books, these are clearly his best for the writing, themes and storytelling. Like all great literature, the context is involving, and the subtext thrilling. I would single out The Crossing (the middle book) as one of the best books I have ever read. Instead of giving the Nobel Prize for Literature to obscure Romanian poets, why not a thought for the elderly McCarthy?