Product Description

In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.  While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15276 in Books
• Published on: 1993-06-29
• Released on: 1993-06-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.com
"Scuttling down the mountain with the thing on his back he looked like a man beset by some ghast succubus, the dead girl riding him with legs bowed akimbo like a monstrous frog." Child of God must be the most sympathetic portrayal of necrophilia in all of literature. The hero, Lester Ballard, is expelled from his human family and ends up living in underground caves, which he peoples with his trophies: giant stuffed animals won in carnival shooting galleries and the decomposing corpses of his victims. Cormac McCarthy's much-admired prose is suspenseful, rich with detail, and yet restrained, even delicate, in its images of Lester's activities. So tightly focused is the story on this one "child of God" that it resembles a myth, or parable. "You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you.... A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it."

From the Inside Flap
In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

From the Back Cover
"A reading experience so impressive. . . [it] seems almost to defy the easy aesthetic categories. . . accomplished in rare, spare, precise yet poetic prose." --New Republic

Customer Reviews

Child Of God - A Macabre Masterpiece
Cormac McCarthy may be the most important writer around these days. All of his works exude their own unique brilliance, causing readers to struggle for stopping points. "Child Of God" is an earlier masterpiece laying the groundwork for his future works. Lester Ballard loses his home to auction and is forced to rough it in a dilapdated cabin in the woods outside of town. Inside, his vagrant mind begins to lust for his strange obsessions. One day he stumbles upon a dead couple in a wrecked car and stumbles into necrophelia. Before long he takes to roaming the woods and seeking new victims, all the while lusting for revenge upon the people who moved into his old home.
This is the simple explanation for a deep, and disturbing tale of the wants and needs of a twisted, tormented mind. "Child Of God" is a fantastic read and one in a line of McCarthy classics!

Written in 1973!
First of all, this is a very dark book, creepy and depressing throughout!

The book centers around a lonesome man by the name of Lester Ballard, he's a little bit (Hannibal Lecter) and a little bit (Ed Gein). Lester finds a dead girls body, instead of telling someone, he takes her home. After the first one, Lester can't stop!

The story in "Child of God" takes awhile to really get going, but the last half of the book is a page turner!

Highly recommended to all McCarthy fans!

Amazingly this McCarthy book was written in 1973! Wow!

Great short read that takes you to a dark, dark place!

Sick! But interesting and a dark and desperate adventure.
"Child of God" is a story of a poor, lonesome and demented redneck named Lester trying to survive in a poor redneck town. From the beginning we see that he has gotten the boot from society (be it as it may) and has been forgotten and left on his own to survive and pursue his own interests, which are very sick and wrong. But he doesn't seem to realize he is doing anything wrong. I am not going to go into it but the thing is, as he hides from his pursuers living in caves, I root for him! I almost like him and find myself snickering at his horrific behavior!! What is wrong with me?

I think this is a good story. It contains a lot of contrasts, the actual plot is dark and there is evil and violence and desperation, but at the same time, there is humor and a little lightness and some action. If you like Cormac McCarthy you should read this book. It's a weird one but it keeps your interest and stengthens your grasp of Cormac's dark and desperate edge-of-humanity with maybe-a-smirk landscapes.