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Child of God

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( 51,274 ratings, 4,756 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy is a haunting exploration of isolation and moral decay. Set in rural Tennessee, it follows the life of Lester Ballard, an outcast driven by loneliness and alienation. With McCarthy's evocative prose, the novel delves into themes of societal abandonment and human depravity.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you are drawn to stark and haunting portrayals of isolation and depravity set against the desolate backdrop of rural Tennessee. The story tackles the descent of a man through vivid and often unsettling prose, revealing Cormac McCarthy's unique ability to delve into the darker aspects of the human experience. If you appreciate intense character studies and a gripping narrative that explores themes of alienation and moral ambiguity, you'll find this work compelling.

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Brutal and disturbing, this is a novel that examines the darkest shades of human experience with dignity and grace.

'McCarthy is a master stylist, perhaps without equal in American letters' Village Voice

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

By the author of the critically acclaimed Border Trilogy, Child of God is a taut, chilling novel that plumbs the depths of human degradation.

Lester Ballard, a violent, solitary and introverted young backwoodsman dispossessed on his ancestral land, is released from jail and allowed to haunt the hill country of East Tennessee, preying on the population with his strange lusts.

McCarthy transforms commonplace brushes with humanity โ€” in homesteads, stores and in the woods โ€” into stunning scenes of the comic and the grotesque, and as the story hurtles toward its unforgettable conclusion, depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humour, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy is highly praised for its powerful writing and the author's ability to evoke empathy for its protagonist, despite his horrific deeds. Critics commend McCarthy's precise yet poetic prose and note the novel's impressive, unique aesthetic. The story of Lester Ballard's decline is depicted with a blend of passion, tenderness, and humour, capturing the Southern setting's bitter irony.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780330510950

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 January 2010

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 142g

Pages: 192

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.

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