Outer Dark (Paperback)

by Cormac McCarthy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Vintage will rerelease these previous novels from McCarthy to coincide with the paperback appearance of All The Pretty Horses : Outer Dark is a mysterious tale of an Appalachian family, while Child of God , also set in the hill country, tells of a violent ex-convict.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
To coincide with the paperback release of McCarthy's National Book Award winner, All the Pretty Horses ( LJ 5/15/92), Vintage is reissuing these two earlier novels. Relating the story of a mother's search for her lost child, Outer Dark was described by LJ 's reviewer as a "novel full of horror and pathos" ( LJ 9/15/68). Child of God tells an equally bleak story with characters that comprise a "sad human compost heap" ( LJ 1/15/74). For serious fiction collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 29, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679728732
• ISBN-13: 978-0679728733
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,967 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #18 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( M ) > McCarthy, Cormac

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Western redone as gothic horror, May 17, 2001

By	J. Remington "John Remington" (Adams, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Cannibalism, incest, violence, shadows and morbidity are not images usually associated with the western genre. Cormac McCarthy combines these gothic horror elements with the "Tale of the Wandering Jew" to craft a novel that, while certainly a genre western in the classic sense (it is filled with outlaws, pioneers, gunfights, horses, etc.) manages to also defy catergorization.

This is not a novel for all readers. McCarthy is an aquired taste. The hope through regeneration and purgation is present but certainly takes a close reading to discover. I am not a fan of dark literature per se, but McCarthy posseses such a unique linguistic style, that he indeed weaves a magic tapestry around his narratives and seduces the reader. He also manages to breathe new life into a classic American genre by throwing a new spin at his audience.

Like the rest of McCarthy's novels, "Outer Dark" is on one hand extremely cinematic with its rich and dense imagery and yet completely unfilmable. In fact Jim Jarmasch's excellent but aquired taste "Dead Man" contains many scenes that could have been taken directly from "Outer Dark".

As with all westerns, McCarthy devotes a large portion of his storytelling to creating a vivid landscape. The natural world according to McCarthy is wide, expansive and filled with great dread and danger. The Wilderness is not a place for the meek- they do not get to inherit the earth according to McCarthy. His view is extremely Old Testement in that regard. The wild expanses of the undeveloped country is, in of itself a scourge angel where wickedness is to be purged.

"Outer Dark" is at times a difficult read. For those brave souls willing to take a chance on a risky work of art, I whole heartedly reccomend this unique novel.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wellcrafted consistent lyrical trek thru a Hell of sorts, July 21, 1997

By A Customer

Cormac McCarthy shows himself decisively to be the author who later develops into the eminent American maestro of the mysterious metaphor in this early work Outer Dark. A writer known more for his ingenuity as a wordsmith and perfection of metaphor than for complicated plots or rich characterization, McCarthy has crafted this early novel around a simple premise--simple but no less eerie for its simplicity. The story follows an orphaned brother and sister aged around 20 years who spawn a child between them which the brother steals and leaves for dead in the nearby Appalachian forest--telling his sister that the baby died. A traveling salesman finds the child in the forest and takes the baby with him. The sister catches her brother in his lie and sets out across the surrounding towns and countryside in search of the baby for the next year or so. The brother likewise sets out in search of work and his sister. Their brief but spooky adventures in search of the baby and each other comprise the remainder of the book. By virtue of his craft, McCarthy slowly reveals the world through which the siblings search to be the very landscape of a sort of living Hell dominated by horrible luck and a sub-Miltonic evil trinity. Readers who enjoyed Blood Meridian will not be let down; will perhaps even be more impressed by parts. This book actually contains a 5 page passage that is arguably richer than the best of Blood Meridian. Describing the brother running from the forest after leaving his child for dead, McCarthy writes, "He did not come upon the river but upon the creek again. Or another creek. He followed it down, in full flight now, the trees beginning to close him in, malign and baleful shapes that reared like enormous androids provoked at the alien insubstantiality of this flesh colliding among them."

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Step Outside, November 5, 2003

By	Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book serves as a perfect introduction to McCarthy's greatest works, particularly Blood Meridian and Suttree. In reading this relatively short work, one gains a sense of what it is like to step into a McCarthy landscape. For reading his works is more like entering some preternatural world than following your typical plot and glimpsing into depths of an individual character. Indeed, it is more like walking straight into some sort of warped medieval landscape, as a picture by Bosch or Breughel, than reading a narrative or following a plot line. One gradually finds one's self engulfed in a visionary realm with tentacles only thinly attached to a "realistic" one. And, as indicated by the title, this world is unremittingly bleak. And this work, like all McCarthy's best, leaves us pondering anew the same question: Why, for what purpose, is man thrown into this nightmare of a world? Or, as McCarthy puts it here, "He wondered where the blind man was going and did he know how the road ended. Someone should tell a blind man before setting him out that way."