Blood Meridian
by Cormac McCarthy
Summary
A teenage runaway known only as the kid joins a gang of scalp hunters massacring Native Americans and Mexicans along the Texas borderlands in the 1840s, falling under the influence of the enormous, erudite, and seemingly immortal Judge Holden, one of the most terrifying figures in American fiction. McCarthy renders the violence in prose of almost biblical grandeur, refusing any redemptive arc and instead building a relentless meditation on humanity's capacity for and fascination with brutality. The novel was met with modest attention on release but is now widely ranked among the greatest American novels ever written.
Historical Context & Significance
The 1986 Pulitzer for fiction went to Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, a very different vision of the American West. McCarthy's novel sold poorly and drew mixed reviews at the time, only gaining its towering reputation through a slow critical reassessment over the following decades.