Cruel, raw, no frills.
A seminal 1985 work by America's most acclaimed contemporary author that has already entered the canon of classic American literature. It tells the story of the conquest of the American West in a completely raw and drastic way and is characterized as a catalogue of violence, bloodshed, brutality and cruelty.
Cormac McCarthy published his fifth novel, Blood Meridian or Evening Reds in the West, in 1985, and although the critical reviews were more or less favourable, most reviewers were struck by the unprecedented level of violence and the remarkable absence of moral principles. From a commercial point of view, the book was not very successful and it took a few more years before it was really appreciated by readers. It is now regularly ranked among the most important American novels of the twentieth century.
The story is set in 1849-1850 on the US-Mexico border, where Glanton's band of hired killers hunt Indian scalps for the Mexican government. Many historically documented characters appear in the gang, but also a fictional and nameless 16-year-old boy, the protagonist of the story. But looming over them all is the mysterious Judge Holden, who rightly aspires to be the most sinister figure in American literature.
The Blood Meridian is a raw expedition into the historical interregnum that reigned in the West after the Mexican-American War, when only the law of the stronger, the law of the quicker hand and the law of the larger calibre applied. In purplish flesh colours, with the sound of crunching cartilage and the sweet smell of blood, the true essence of humanity is revealed in all its grotesqueness - we are dominated by cruelty, violence and war.
