This author has a unique writing style that takes a little getting used to. But the book is engrossing and enlightening for those who grew up on tv westerns. This is much more on the dark side of those westerns. It will keep you wondering til the end the outcome of their saga across the southwestern US in 1849. Very, very, good. I can't wait to read more of this author!!

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This book is brilliant. It may be the best written book I've ever read, both stylistically and in the clarity of its vision. But that may keep it from being a good book. Cormac McCarty believes, at least as he comes across in these pages, that violence trumps everything else. It is a deeply disturbing vision, one to which I cannot assign the adjective 'good.'

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The writing in this book is very strong, but the story is hard to stomach. The book depicts all the worst things about humanity through the eyes of a young man who has joined in a band of mercenaries working north and south of the Mexico-Texas border. The end of the book feels meaningless, and I think it was meant to feel that way. I'm not a philosopher, but this book feels nihilistic and empty. Beautiful writing, ugly vision.

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madness, mayhem, and carnage. by far his best novel.

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One of the best books ever written. Drenched in blood and despair, McCarthy takes the topic of the old west and head-scalping to gripping new levels. The punctuation and archaic way of writing may be confusing and/or frustrating, but give it a little bit and be patient with it. The book is well worth it.

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Cormac McCarthy died last week (June 13, 2023), age 89, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was a masterful prose stylist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who plumbed the depths of violence and vengeance in his novels such as "Blood Meridian," "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road."

Blood Meridian is an historical novel based loosely on the exploits of the Glanton gang, a group of scalp hunters who massacred Indigenous Americans and others in the United StatesâMexico borderlands from 1849 to 1850. The gang was hired by Mexican authorities to hunt the Apaches and were rewarded $100 per scalp. But the gang didn't stop there. They also killed peaceful Indians and murdered Mexicans to claim the bounty on scalps. The narrative of the novel follows a fictional teenager from Tennessee referred to as "the kid" as he is drawn into the Glanton gang after being rescued from prison. But the center antagonist of the novel is a vile personage know as "the judge" described as a physically massive, highly educated, skilled member of the gang who is extremely pale and completely bald from head to toe.

This novel is full of violent descriptions of the bloody encounters between the Apaches and the scalphunters. There is violence on both sides and McCarthy's prose does not hold back in showing this. This is considered by many to be McCarthy's masterpiece and he has been compared to writers such as Faulkner, Twain, and Melville. To me his writing is somewhat like Faulkner's with a lot of long sentences and thoughts strewn together. McCarthy doesn't use a lot of punctuation such as quotation marks and sometimes I did find it difficult to determine who was saying what. But I would definitely say that he is masterful in his narrative descriptions. I definitely need to read more of his work.

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A very strange book, like his others. Lots of gore, blood and killing with a very hard to read dialoged. Guess its just his style, but not very enjoyable trying to figure out what is being said. Takes place 1800, Texas-Mexico boarder.

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