Finished reading All The Pretty Horses and loved it. Now reading Blood Meridian and boy is it bleak. A good read if a bit wordy but man is it the worst about us. Almost half thru and I want to do a kindness for someone to shake off the gloom from this book.

“The Border Trilogy” includes “No Country for Old Men.”

Yes, he got darker, but still great.

Good stuff. Dude wrote without reserve.

I got half-way through Blood Meridian and gave up on it. Dark, depressing, violent and way over the top with gratuitous gore. Divorces are expensive and I understand he had a lot of alimony to pay.

Indeed, Cormac wrote of our fears, but McMurtry wrote of our reality.

A great story teller but really dark. I can read but 1 or 2 a year with a rest between.
C.G.B.

Yes I’m stalled out reading Blood Meridian, one brutal event after another. The story is going nowhere.

Finished the book. Wtf?

I haven't read that one yet...maybe never. I know that in "All The Pretty Horses" he brought to the forefront every Texan's horror of being in a Mexican prison.

Well, I like his books, but find the same; they are rough and bleak. I thought Blood Meridian was about the devil (the judge) drawing the young protagonist over to the dark side. Been a long time since I read it, though. I was surprised to see it was based on a true story. The Judge (John Joel Glanton) and the Glanton gang really were scalp-hunters in Mexico. And they really did just kill and scalp Mexicans living in villages. One of the Glanton gang ran around San Francisco with Old Soldier's pickled head in a jar as his drinking companion, apparently.

My Mom is in a book club with a bunch of other nice ladies in their 70's and 80's. She asked for a recommendation since the others kept choosing books focused on woke subjects. My son said I should suggest Blood Meridian.

I picture the Judge as a cross between Elmer Fudd and King Kong Bundy. I did enjoy when he would pontificate around the fire. Book Club ain’t ready!!

skl1, how decatent, to expose these little old book club ladies to violent debauchery after they have been inundated in tea cozy mysteries. I salute you.