Suspenseful,spare,a quick and compelling read,Child of God is at the same time McCarthy's most extreme challenge to the limits of propriety,perhaps outdoing even Blood Meridian in its chronicling of individual depravity.Its hero,Lester Ballard,is a murderer and necrophile,expelled from the human family and eventually living in underground caves,which he peoples with his trophies: giant stuffed animals won in carnival shooting galleries and the decomposing corpses of his several shot victims,male and female.This is the child of God.Yet McCarthy's meditation on this lost soul is restrained,even delicate,in its images of his grievous acts.There are fewer graphic assaults on the reader's imagination than in either Suttree or Blood Meridian.And his treatment of Lester is more sympathetic than of comparable beyond-the-pale characters,Culla Holme in Outer Dark and the kid in Blood Meridian,perhaps to the reader's discomfort.

By the author of the critically acclaimed Border Trilogy,Child of God is a taut,chilling novel that plumbs the depths of human degradation. Falsely accused of rape,Lester Ballard--a violent,dispossessed man who haunts the hill country of East Tennessee--is released from jail and allowed to roam at will,preying on the population with his strange lusts. A trip to the dry-goods store,an errand to the blacksmith,a bartering session at the general store are all transformed into stunning scenes of the comic and the grotesque. As the story hurtles toward its unforgettable conclusion,McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity,humor,and characteristic lyrical brilliance.