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The Crossing (The Border Trilogy) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "WHEN THEY CAME SOUTH out of Grant County Boyd was not much more than a baby and the newly formed county they'd named Hidalgo was..." (more)
Key Phrases: dont mean nothin, didnt answer, aint nothin, Casas Grandes, New Mexico, San Diego (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)

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Amazon Price New from Used from
  School & Library Binding, April 30, 1995 $26.90 $26.90 $23.00
  Hardcover, June 7, 1994 -- $7.30 $0.01
  Paperback, March 13, 1995 $10.20 $4.97 $1.62
  Audio, Cassette -- $6.60 $13.69
  Unknown Binding, December 31, 1991 -- -- $10.90

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The opening section of The Crossing, book two of the Border Trilogy, features perhaps the most perfectly realized storytelling of Cormac McCarthy's celebrated career. Like All the Pretty Horses, this volume opens with a teenager's decision to slip away from his family's ranch into Mexico. In this case, the boy is Billy Parham, and the catalyst for his trip is a wolf he and his father have trapped, but that Billy finds himself unwilling to shoot. His plan is to set the animal loose down south instead.

This is a McCarthy novel, not Old Yeller, and so Billy's trek inevitably becomes more ominous than sweet. It boasts some chilling meditations on the simple ferocity McCarthy sees as necessary for all creatures who aim to continue living. But Billy is McCarthy's most loving--and therefore damageable--character, and his story has its own haunted melancholy.

Billy eventually returns to his ranch. Then, finding himself and his world changed, he returns to Mexico with his younger brother, and the book begins meandering. Though full of hypnotically barren landscapes and McCarthy's trademark western-gothic imagery (like the soldier who sucks eyes from sockets), these latter stages become tedious at times, thanks partly to the female characters, who exist solely as ghosts to haunt the men.

But that opening is glorious, and the whole book finally transcends its shortcomings to achieve a grim and poignant grandeur. --Glen Hirshberg --This text refers to the Paperback edition.



From Publishers Weekly

Young Billy Parham, in a horse stall, dreams of his father's eyes, "those eyes that seemed to contemplate with a terrible equanimity the cold and the dark and the silence that moved upon him." Billy could as well be dreaming of McCarthy's prose and the unsparing tone of this, the second volume in the Border Trilogy. The Crossing , following the award-winning and bestselling All the Pretty Horses , is set in the American Southwest and in Mexico, and features, like its predecessor, teenage boys, their horses, a girl and the recurring spectacles of desert days and nights, awful wonders and appalling deprivations, and no small amount of roadside philosophizing. The story of Billy, his younger brother Boyd, the fates of their horses, a wolf, their parents and their dog, set against a vague and distant backdrop of the coming Second World War, throws little light upon a universe without much meaning, though it is in the nature of McCarthy characters to try to anyway. In the end, when the last dog is hanged, so to speak, what survives is the rhythm of McCarthy's open, ropey sentences circling a logic as inscrutable as an animal's or a god's. Although no mysteries are solved, and no comfort gained for these lonely characters, there is that language wrestling to earth all that it cannot know and all that it can. Readers again will be in awe of McCarthy's extraordinary prose attentions--the biblical cadences, the freshened vocabulary, the taut, vivid renderings of the struggle to live. 200,000 first printing; BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 425 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (June 7, 1994)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0394574753
  • ISBN-13: 978-0394574752
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #266,801 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Cormac McCarthy
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First Sentence:
WHEN THEY CAME SOUTH out of Grant County Boyd was not much more than a baby and the newly formed county they'd named Hidalgo was itself little older than the child. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
dont mean nothin, didnt answer, aint nothin, barn bay, dont reckon, aint goin, didnt look, bar ditch, touched his hat, mute dog
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Casas Grandes, New Mexico, San Diego, Billy Parham, Las Varas, Hog Canyon, Santa Maria, Animas Peaks, Black Point, Cloverdale Creek, Nuevo Mexico, Good God, The Tarahumara, Where's Boyd
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Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
 

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Customer Reviews

93 Reviews
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4.1 out of 5 stars (93 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Other Side, July 15, 2002
By booknblueslady (Woodland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Crossing (Paperback)
It begins as an innocent story of two young brothers, Billy Parham, 16 and Boyd Parham, 14 giving food to an Indian. Billy and Boyd live on a ranch with their parents in New Mexico and are required to help with the work there. One of Billies tasks is to trap a wolf who is attacking and killing their cattle. Billy becomes intrigued by the primitive and wild creature, who seems to intelligently elude capture. He attempts to learn about the wolf by asking an old and learned man about the ways of wolves. As Billy begins to feel a kinship with the wolf he discovers it caught in one of his traps. He realizes that he cannot kill it and impulsively sets out for the Mexican border to return the wolf to where it came from. By crossing the border, Billy adventures into an nether world. It is not simply another country, but another reality.

We could easily call The Crossing a coming of age story, an adventure story, a quest or an epic poem, but it is all that and much more. As with any coming of age story, Billy Parham loss of innocence comes with a price of great consequence. Like an adventure story The Crossing is filled with action and unexpected situations. As with tales of quests as the Iliad and Gulliver's Travels we meet strange and interesting creatures along Billy's path. Like an epic poem The Crossing is filled with lyrical prose, both in Spanish and English.

Cormac McCarthy is one of the great American authors of the twentieth century and he proves it in once again in the Crossing the second book of his border trilogy. His prose is beautiful to read, with dialogue devoid of quotation marks and contractions missing apostrophes. He shifts from English to Spanish can be challenging to the non-Spanish reader. His scenes rich with descriptors can be stark and ruthless. The reader should be prepared to be shocked and moved.

Reading McCarthy comes with a price. After reading one of his books the reader feels changed, drained and at a loss. I, like Billy cannot retrieve my innocence. It disappeared when I went south of the border with him. As the Spanish Gypsy tells him

"We think we are the victims of time. In reality, the way of the world isn't fixed anywhere. How could that be possible? We are our own journey. And therefore we are time as well. We are the same. Fugitive. Inscrutable. Ruthless."

I cannot helped but be moved by Cormac McCarthy's work and The Crossing was perhaps the favorite, which I have read.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An epic with many sections of perfect storytelling, August 28, 2003
This review is from: The Crossing (The Border Trilogy) (Audio Cassette)
Cormac McCarthy is a national treasure. The Crossing begins with a long section where the protagonist, Billy Parham, is tracking a she-wolf, setting traps which she fails to get caught in, finally catching her, then being unable to kill her. So he sets off to Mexico from his home in NM, planning to return her to the mountains where from which she surely came. Things don't quite work out the way he'd planned.
And when he returns home, he finds his world forever changed. He and his brother, Boyd, return to Mexico to try to find his father's stolen horses and the men who stole them. Again, things don't quite work out as planned.
Without saying too much that would reveal the plot line, I'll mention that Billy eventually sets out to Mexico a third time on a mission of reclamation and redemption. And yet again, all does not go according to plan.
Along the way, there are long stretches of other travelers or characters Billy meets who tell their stories: a priest, a blind man, a gypsy, among others. The overall effect is one of melancholy, and of course, having been written by such a consummate master of the art, the eloquence of the language shines through everywhere. As a side benefit, you'll learn or re-learn quite a bit of Spanish along the way. I began by rewinding the tape and doing word for word translations from my rusty memory. By about tape #6 I became aware that I was understanding the Spanish perfectly, scarcely aware he'd shifted into it.
Spectacular book on tape.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars McCarthy proves that he does humorous as well as grim - a review of "The Crossing", May 20, 2007
This review is from: The Crossing (Hardcover)
Well what can I say. More brilliant writing by a master AND for the first time I found myself laughing -a lot- while reading a McCarthy book. I know you might not believe me, but truly there are some extremely funny bits in this story. [My husband kept looking at me wondering if perhaps I had slipped the dusk jack for "The Crossing" onto another book. ]

And alas, lest you wonder, McCarthy was just leading me on. Up, up he took me. Wonderful story (expected). Humor (okay, not expected). But I was laughing and soaring and I was beginning to wonder if this book might be wildly different from the others. Certainly neither "The Road", nor "Blood Meridian" had me cackling: those were all grim fare. But rest assured. As high as McCarthy took me, that was where he dropped me from. It was a long plummet but finally I was back on familiar territory... heart torn out... feelings wrenched and twisted.

Five Stars. "The Crossing" is a McCarthy story that should make you laugh and then cry. Simply a wonderful tale with characters to care about. Exquisite prose.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A strong, haunting work.
Billy Parhman captures a shewolf on his property. Instead of shooting it, he promptly decides to return it to Mexico. Read more
Published 5 days ago by DanD

4.0 out of 5 stars A Boy, A Wolf and a Horse
Here is a book so filled with tragedy and hard, desperate living that it is difficult to fathom how people could have possibly survived to old age, or even middle age. Read more
Published 12 days ago by M. Marlene Smith

4.0 out of 5 stars The Crossing (The Border Trilogy)
Cormac McCarthy is a writer with a message. Redemption is optional. Great reading, but not light reading.
Published 2 months ago by R. Spooner

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, just as impressive as the 1st read
I didn't think things could get tougher than they did in "All the Pretty Horses". This book opens starts off and before you know it your jaw is on the floor. Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. Mendoza

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly Depressing
Although McCarthy is incapable of writing a bad book, this is a considerably more difficult and frustrating book than the first volume in this series, "All the Pretty Horses. Read more
Published 3 months ago by CJA

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not his best work
I have read 5 of Cormac's books and enjoy his writing immensely but this book is different. The first half of the book is captivating but the last half is long and meandering. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mark Buckley

5.0 out of 5 stars Quick and efficent service
The book I ordered arrived very quickly and in mint condition. All at a great price. Thank you for such great service.
Published 4 months ago by D. Martinez

3.0 out of 5 stars Great writing. Depressing story. Need Spanish lessons.
Since reading No Country and The Road, I wanted to give The Crossing a try. It really starts out brilliantly, but quickly slides into a depressing, harrowing, sad and... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Michael Smith

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent if you know Spanish....Good if you don't
Of the three books in McCarthy's border trilogy, the Crossing has the largest number of Spanish-language dialogue sections...some of which are quite lengthy. Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. T. Weaver

4.0 out of 5 stars A Doomed Enterprise
I first read this book about 14 years ago when it came out and it became one of my favorite McCarthy novels. Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. L. Sartain

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