Customer Reviews

Child of God (Picador Books)

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1 star:		(5)

 

 

Cormac McCarthy is one of the most accessible of modern authors. This in no way diminishes his accomplishments, as he is adept at so many facets of the writer's art. His prose blends perfectly the spare and the lyrical. His pacing is flawless. The reader is swept up into his cadences, secure in the knowledge that he/she will be expertly guided through the thickets and brambles to the clearing ahead, also assured that there would be no needless detours along the way. We are never overburdened with needless detail. Characters are believable and delineated concretely. The reader's senses are awakened to sensory impressions that are visceral. We "remember" what he describes.

<Child of God> is a great example of this master storyteller's art. It is a novel without any hint at artifice. It can be read by virtually anyone. What distinguishes it from equally "accessible" works is that it can be read on so many levels. In other words, it is a work that naturally has broad appeal. It will appeal to those who enjoy reading about disturbed murderers and psychopaths. On the other hand it will hold enormous interest to readers who are thoroughly familiar with the Southern Gothic fiction of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Not to denigrate McCarthy, but on the surface, this work might even be called "Faulkner Lite." McCarthy's acknowledgment to Faulkner in fact occurs in the opening sentence of the novel (which also happens to be the work's longest sentence) < They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and pitching in the ruts and the musicians on chairs in the truckbed teetering and tuning their instruments, the fat man with the guitar grinning and gesturing to others in a car behind and bending to give a note to the fiddler who turned a fiddlepeg and listened with a wrinkled face. > This alliterative run-on is clearly McCarthy's way of paying homage to the master.

Like Faulkner and O'Connor, this novelist peoples his fiction with grotesque, or at the least, exaggerated characters. The Cornelius Suttree of the novel <Suttree > could just as easily be a member of the Sutpen family in Faulkner. And the main character in this work, Lester Ballad, is every bit as amoral and unconcerned with human life as is "The Misfit" in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." In fact, if one were looking for a literary model for Lester Ballad, one should turn to O'Connor before going to Hannibal Lecter. Ballard is a kind of amalgam of The Misfit and Harper Lee's Boo Radley, the "child of God" sequestered away in <To Kill A Mockingbird >. The difference being that whereas Boo Radley was only a scarecrow, Ballard is something far more sinister and malignant.

Malignancy, in fact, is what this novel is about essentially. Lester Ballard is a tumor that has been growing and festering within the body of the community. He is a case of "out of sight, out of mind." Because he has been repeatedly shunted off by the insular southern town that McCarthy depicts, he is free in his isolation to let his psychotic mind's tendrils expand and propagate unchecked. McCarthy's underlying message may be that the more we neglect those on the periphery of society, the more we invite evil into our lives. The very title of the book seems to beg the question. It recalls in some respects Christ's warning/appeal that "as you do unto the least of these (God's children), so you do unto me." So in a very large sense, Lester Ballard represents every street-person you pass in San Francisco or New York or wherever you happen to be a member of a larger community. Ballard is in this sense more avenging angel than irredeemable villain. The malignancy is growing in our collective communities, for the most part unseen, but festering, nevertheless. The greater our neglect, the greater the chance for evil rebounding upon us.

If you have not read McCarthy, this is a great place to start. You can read this novel in one or two sittings, as it flows so smoothly and uninterruptedly that you will not even notice that he is planting these seeds of inquiry as you are rolling along. Yet after you put the book down, you will no doubt take away a lot more than you noticed in passing.

No one finishes Child of God with an indifferent impression. Usually I'm sad to finish a good book, but I was happy when this one was over. Child of God is not a modern day morality tale but a complex book that produces a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. The pleasure is derived from the beautiful language, language especially effective when used to describe a character. It's the subject matter which made my mind uncomfortable. The details are too real, the subject too macabre for a moral human to enjoy. At times Lester Ballard seems closer to the "sympathetic apes" in the story than to a man with a conscience. The first sentence and last twenty pages alone are worth the purchase price of the book; what comes in between will race your pulse and curdle your stomach. Don't read this on a camping trip in the woods, but read it.

"Child of God" is the story of Lester Ballard, outcast, necrophiliac, and psychopath in the Tennessee mountains. I'm sure some people would find this subject matter repellent, but I think the book has just enough of a lyrical quality to keep it from being too distasteful. In the hands of a less talented writer, it could have degenerated into a silly Stephen King-type horror story. In about two hundred pages, Cormac McCarthy creates a powerful and vivid portrait of a twisted individual, one I don't think I'll ever forget. This book is a perfect companion piece to his earlier novel "Outer Dark." (Both of these books would make great movies.)

"The travails of a homeless, retarded necrophiliac killer roaming the hills of Kentucky. It sounds like a joke but somehow, it's not. (Though, if I were John Waters, I'd option it immediately.) Not only do you take this ghoul seriously, once you're halfway through the book, you realize you're on his side. Without psychologizing, or even getting into the protagonist's completely non-reflective head, McCarthy makes us understand him; what he's doing makes total sense to him, given what he knows. He comes to seem merely an extreme version of all people - blind, cosmically and comically ignorant, doing what makes sense to us given what we know."

- Mary Gaitskill From The Salon**com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors, pg 156.

Mary Gaitskill has given the best description of this novel that I've read anywhere, going so far as to suggest that it almost seems jokey in description. I can roughly imagine what would happen to someone trying to pitch this idea to a publisher or a producer today. Almost.

I will say this with absolute certainty: this book is a MASTERPIECE. McCarthy is a master. He is a master of language most of all. He is a master of manipulation. He's given us a character nearly void of emotion and interior and yet we find ourselves choking on our own emotions.

Lester Ballard's existence in Child of God is spare, fragile. McCarthy's depiction of Lester's interior is even sparer - like bones bare of tissue and muscle - a skeleton of conjoined events void of excess flesh in both thought and description. Even the punctuation is spare. McCarthy takes us through the life of Lester Ballard, a disjointed creature surviving in the wild, by delicately weaving a story that is, at once, full of despair and depravity yet lyrically beautiful, ruthlessly harsh and stunningly exquisite in its physical depiction of nature.

I am overwhelmed by McCarthy's mastery of minimalism in his choices of what information to give to the reader about or even from Lester. In Child of God, McCarthy never really tells you what Lester looks like, is thinking, wearing or feeling in any absolute form unless it is entirely necessary. I've read the book several times now. I still don't know for certain what Lester Ballard looks like. I don't know what color his hair is. Or his eyes. I don't know how tall he is other than not very. And really, none of this matters.

Without getting into specifics, I will say that this book is a very upsetting book to read. The main character, Lester, commits acts that are of the most disturbing nature one can (or in my case, never thought I could) imagine. And my warning is that it is NOT for everyone. Those who can step into the darkness of Lester's existence will experience words so thoughtfully joined, so carefully drawn and pared to their most delicate state. A tale unlike any other. One of the most finely crafted novels I've ever read.

On that note, Mary Gaitskill said it and I agree. So, here are my top ten reasons why John Waters should make Child of God, the movie:

10. Celluloid goldfish

9. Demon yodelers

8. Mountain gnomes who dress in leaves

7. Use of the term "follerin"

6. Testicles referred to as "cods"

5. Women named Urethra, Cerebella and Hernia Sue

4. Men in drag (down to the undies) and frightwigs ("fashioned" from dried human scalps)

3. Frozen gals

2. A cannibal in the cage next door

And the number 1 reason:

1. Dialogue that contains:

Say you want to blow me?

I said owe.

This may be the scariest ride in contemporary American fiction. A tale of the crazed Lester Ballard and his gradual slide into absolute depravity--necrophilia is just the beginning of it--this is dark, dark stuff. It could have been merely a freak show in prose, but fortunately we're in the hands of a master stylist, who makes this a rich, haunting, blackly comic experience. Nor is the violence extraneous to the point, as McCarthy puts forth the notion that even a Lester Ballard--"a child of God much like yourself perhaps"--may somehow occupy a vital place in the human family. A first-rate novel.

Saying that "Child of God" is about good and evil may sound a bit pretentious. Indeed, this tale of Lester Ballard, an outcast from society, doesn't seem too high-handed at first. It initially comes off as a gritty, honest portrayal of a man driven to murder and necrophilia. It's a bit hard to read, both due to imagery and language; readers will wince at the horrible scenes as much as the complicated dialogue and phrasing.

But that's just Cormac McCarthy for you; his grasp on the English language is unparalleled in today's literary circles, and at times is daunting, a puzzle that must be unravelled. Therein lies half the fun. The other half is putting the novel down and thinking about what you've read. "Child of God" makes us question our own humanity; like McCarthy's more recent "The Road," or any other of his novels, it makes you wonder what you yourself are capable of doing, if driven to your outermost limits. Is this an easy read? No, not hardly. But is it a worthwhile read? Oh, most definitely. Cormac McCarthy is one of the few fiction writers today who genuinely has something to say, and who won't beat you over the head with it; he'll say his piece, then leave it up to you to figure it out. That's one of the things that makes great literature so great.

I love horror of any kind; novels, short stories, movies, you name it. Being from Tennessee, I'm especially drawn to "rural legends" about backwoods boogie men that you often wonder are or aren't lurking somewhere off in the woods beyond your back doorstep.

My first McCarthy book was "Blood Meridian", which I devoured this past spring. I say devoured as it totally consumed my reading time but took some three weeks to finish. While reading novels, especially longer ones, I dabble in a short story or two along the way. That was not the case with "Blood Meridian", it consumes you and I found myself doing extra research about the locales and peoples it mentioned. At times, with the inclusion of Spanish and a variety of not-everyday-use words, it was a tough though very rewarding read and it's ending will chill you to the bone.

"Child of God" has all of the greatness that is McCarthy but it a much more digestible pill. The expertly crafted prose drip with poetics while communicating exactly what the reader needs to know to picture a scene. Many authors try this and all you're left with is watercolor gobbledygook. The blurb on the front cover says "demands its reader's attention from the opening sentence" and quite honestly there is no better one sentence summation.

The novel narrates the sordid and assorted episodes of Lester Ballard, a nare-do-well inhabiting East Tennessee's mountainous region. Some of the things Lester gets away with boggle the mind but you learn that there may be divine, or infernal, powers at work. Often, there is a dreamlike quality to many of the tales and in every case each character jumps to life in your very living room. There is humor, sometimes blackened, and there is small town life in a nutshell, and there is enough horror to make Edward Lee have convulsions.

I didn't do any research while reading this particular McCarthy novel but I wonder if this could be another story based on the exploits of Ed Gein, ala Pyscho and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Rest assured the details are not gratuitous, just enough so you get the picture. While I love the above mentioned films/book, what separates McCarthy from them is his lyrical prowess, his gift for words. John Gardner, in his book "The Art of Fiction", discusses the idea of elevating the popular. By this, he means taking something within popular culture and turning it into a work of art. To my mind, this is exactly what you have with McCarthy and "Child of God". He has taken a gruesome event in history, one that had already been exploited (for lack of a better term) before, and combined it with his lyrical prowess to create a highly literate work of utmost horror.

This is only the second McCarthy book I have read. I can safely say it and "Blood Meridian" are resting at the foremost position on my list of favorite books of all time. Have a read, and see if it doesn't merit a place on yours.

I feel like I have missed out on one of the most incredibly talented authors alive today. I now plan on reading all of Cormac McCarthy's books.

I began with "The Road" because of Oprah. I was then drawn to "Child of God" because of the title. I thought perhaps it was spiritual. To my surprise it brought me inside the life of a poor sad soul who is deeply disturbed and incredibly lonely.I lived in his cave of darkness with him and identified with his morbid existence as I cooked and cleaned house for my seven children and husband. I would look up from the deep dark book in my lap and gaze around at my family. How could I read such a grotesque book? How could I not? I couldn't put the book down. I wanted it to continue when it was over. It was inspirational and led me back to my writing. I admire the mind of Cormac McCarthy. This book let my mind travel down a road I couldn't have possibly imagined traveling on. A must read.

The plot of this book is highly disturbing: a man is turned out of his home and through a series of events (and perhaps a natural inclination to the perverse) he becomes a serial killer/necrophiliac/vagrant. But McCarthy is so adept at storytelling that even the most macabre aspects of this story read rather poetically and somehow the reader is made sympathetic to the grotesque plight of a heretofore unheard of anti-hero.

The pacing is excellent: the text is sparse, composed into short, jarring chapters that propel an already engaging narrative.

In the end, it's a neat little book that packs a hell of a punch with a premise that lingers and disturbs.

McCarthy has taken not just the grotesque, but the disgusting, and worked wonders. He points us to our own human depravity through the example of the grendel-like character of Lester Ballard, and by making us care for so lost and lonely a soul. I was horrified not just by Lester and the other characters in the book, but by the realization McCarthy created in me that the line between me and Lester is a thin one, and it may not even exist. If you have a strong stomach I encourage you to read this book, and if you don't, you might want to think about making the sacrifice for the sake of seeing something beautiful and profound in the filth of humanity and reality. -sc