Suttree

Cormac McCarthy

From Shelf: RIP Cormac McCarthy. 20/7/1933 – 13/6/2023

Alone and exiled on a dilapidated houseboat, a man named Suttree lives amongst the outcasts of humanity. From Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses.

In this semi-autobiographical work, a man abandons his life of privilege to live among eccentrics, criminals and the impoverished of Knoxville. Suttree is a humorous, compelling tapestry of life on the edge from Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road and Blood Meridian.'Suttree contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish imaginative flair' - Times Literary Supplement1951. Cornelius Suttree lives alone, exiled on a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River. As we meet him, Suttree watches the police haul the body of a suicidal man from the water. Amongst the living, the river is home to hermits, sex workers, alcoholics - and a witch.Conjuring James Joyce's Ulysses, Suttree wanders the river with a detachment and wry humour, encountering a broad cast of humanity as he does - even as dereliction and destitution threaten the last of his remaining dignity.'Suttree is like a good, long scream in the ear' - New York TimesPraise for Cormac McCarthy:'McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute' - Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' - Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' - Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain