Child of God | 
 enlarge | Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $6.93
You Save: $7.02 (50%)
New (42) Used (24) from $4.49
Rating:  61 reviews
Sales Rank: 21053
Media: Paperback
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0679728740
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679728740
ASIN: 0679728740
Publication Date: June 29, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: A20090108120141W
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Amazon.com Review
"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."
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
Good, but not his best January 5, 2009
G. G. Leath
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've made the mistake of reading Cormac McCarthy in reverse chronological order, having started with "No Country for Old Men", "The Road", the Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian before picking up "Child of God". I enjoyed the book but it makes apparent how McCarthy has grown and evolved as an author and storyteller. Many of the elements I loved in the later books are here only embryonic and not fully realized. McCarthy paints a landscape that is disturbing and dangerous, and made more so being very recognizable to those not caught in the throes of the depicted depravity. This was a satisfactory, but McCarthy has produced better. All the books above are well worth reading.
 Outstanding ! January 2, 2009
einar (Grand Rapids, MI)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great story about the struggle between good & evil. I love McCarthy's lyrical prose. This book deserves to be read out loud in order to get the full impact of the story. I could not put this novel down & read it the 1st time in 2 nights, then went back & read it again. The protagonist, Lester Ballard, is a study of pure psychological evil. This book would make a great horror movie. Ballard is such an ordinary person that his actions surpass Hannibal Lecter's !
 Terrible... November 9, 2008
David A. Trice Jr. (Durham, NC United States)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
A waste of beautiful prose and dialog. Disturbing for the sake of disturbing. Lacking any of the emotion that has made the disturbance in McCarthy's other novels lead to insight and in many cases, redemption.
 depressing October 31, 2008
Mary Beth Deaton (Raleigh, NC)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you are feeling good about anything do not read this book...but if you have had some hard times and like beautiful writing..go ahead.. The main character in this book is in such a terrible mess and always goes the wrong way..the book will make your life seem like a piece of cake. Not for youth , not for the shy and not for me.
Good, but not McCarthy's best September 29, 2008
J. Bosiljevac (san fran, ca)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
All of McCarthy's writing is at times disturbing, but this book is perhaps the most twisted of the six I have read. The main character is a Tennessee hermit, Lester Ballard, similar to though less refined than McCarthy's Cornelius Suttree. In the beginning of the book, Ballard is evicted from his land and takes up residence in an abandoned house in the woods, then later in a cave. He roams the woods like a specter, hunting rifle under his arm, scavenging for discarded items he can use in his home. During one of these wanderings, he comes across a dead man and woman in a parked car. He carries the woman's body back to his home and keep her for carnal purposes. CHILD OF GOD is probably the most unsettling book I've read since A.M. Homes' The End of Alice. Part of what makes the book so difficult to read is that McCarthy's writing, like Homes', is so strong. It legitimizes the depravity of the story in a way that other writers couldn't. The book never feels shocking for the sake of shock. And although there are no truly likable characters in the book, Ballard is certainly memorable. If there is a theme, it is that societies create their own own depravity when they cast out and neglect their citizens. As McCarthy says when he introduces us to Ballard, we are all born children of God.
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