Many years before the horrifying, realistic violence of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2005) and the grim post-apocalyptic THE ROAD (2006), Cormac McCarthy wrote his third novel, CHILD OF GOD (1973), providing readers a pen-light beam on a path through a very dark landscape indicating what was to come. CHILD OF GOD contains many of the characteristics readers now identify with the Pulitzer Prize winner who, arguably, ranks among America’s finest living novelists.
Set in the backwoods of East Tennessee and allegedly based partially on a series of true-life murders outside Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1963, CHILD OF GOD is simply terrifying. It tells the story of twenty-seven-year-old Lester Ballard who people say “never was right after his daddy killed himself” when Lester “was about nine or ten.” As an adult, Lester is a loner. He is unliked, distrusted, and all but shunned by others. When his childhood home, such as it is, is auctioned off against his will, Lester finds himself without shelter, totally alone, and his devolution as a human being begins and it rapidly escalates.
McCarthy’s attributes as a writer as seen in the novel are numerous. Readers quickly get accustomed to and accept the author’s minimal, concise, and quirky style of writing (he never uses quotation marks for dialogue) because the author’s prose is consistently at a very high level and so carefully considered. The author convincingly recreates the culture, speech, and way of life of the rural, isolated mountain folk of Sevier County. Regardless of the events which take place, McCarthy chronicles them in a stoic, objective fashion. There is clearly no intent to titillate or inflate the proceedings which occupy the plot of the story and turn it into a horror novel. There is also no effort to make them less shocking than they are or to protect the reader from truly dreadful occurrences. Throughout, McCarthy proves himself a master of imagery and metaphor (the continued return to and emergence from caves is a perfect example).
Lester Ballard becomes a scavenger, struggling to survive without benefit of man-made shelter or companionship. In spite of being almost child-like at times and seeming mentally deficient to most, Lester possesses an incredible amount of willpower and skill in the wild. Less readers begin to find too much sympathy for the character, McCarthy, when least expected, has Lester commit one vile offense after another, each one worse than the last. If his actions are motivated by a sense of want or need, revenge against those who did him wrong or even life in general, one would have a better understanding of him. However, Lester goes from a would-be survivor to a marauding, one-man force of evil, seemingly totally amoral, and capable of extraordinary, self-serving deviance with no remorse, even entering the realms of necrophilia and the real-life horror, Ed Gein. In spite of McCarthy’s ironic title of the book, it is virtually impossible to see Lester as a “child of god” compared to other human beings. However, as it becomes clear to others a crime spree is taking place within their community and Lester is responsible, those who hunt him do so with more than a dedication to justice, but with ruthlessness and deadly intent. In their pursuit to end Lester’s deviant, immoral behavior, they begin to sink to his level. Hence, it is possible to read into McCarthy’s novel a statement about the extremes which can be found in both human nature as well as the very complexion of any possible divinity.
Although CHILD OF GOD is thirty-eight years old at this time, it is, unfortunately, a story of our current times. All of the needless violence, the lack of remorse, the hate, the selfishness, the lack of concern for others, the vigilantism and disregard for proper justice in the novel has existed throughout our history and like a tide, rises and falls and rises again. As McCarthy writes: “You could say that he’s [Lester] sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it.”
The conclusion of CHILD OF GOD is as traumatizing and coolly presented as the earlier events in the novel. The visual images it leaves readers with is staggering, gruesome, tragic, and unforgettable. Complete with flashes of dark humor and vivid, carefully chosen language, CHILD OF GOD is not a comfortable read, but McCarthy’s proficiencies as a great writer are unquestionable. [NOTE: CHILD OF GOD was filmed in 2013. The film was directed by James Franco from a screenplay written by himself and Vince Jolivette. Scott Haze stars as Lester Ballard.]
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Not a real book from this seller.
This seller sent me a poorly printed book that looks like they printed it out themselves sloppily and then glued it together. The pages are all slanted and words are cut off.
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Andrea
Mr. McCathy a God among children. Splendid.
Reviewed in Italy on December 29, 2020