Cormac McCarthy - Outer Dark

Pick up a rock in a moist garden, turn it over, and you might find a few bugs making their home on the underside. Viewing the garden from above we see only green and cheery life, but under the surface lies an underworld of creatures we are mostly mostly unfamiliar with. This is the experience of reading many of Cormac McCarthy's novels. He reaches deep inside of American civilization to find the castoffs and degenerates that are otherwise invisible. He dips his hands deep into the earth of our society with unsentimental observation.

Outer Dark, like the title suggests, explores one of the less enlightened landscapes of American history, culture, and society. The setting of the book is somewhere in the Appalachian mountains. The main characters are brother and sister, Culla and Rinthy Holme. Parentless and penniless, they live in solitude in a shack. Culla has contact with the outside world, doing odd jobs to get by, but Rinthy has no friends or acquaintances. She says, "They ain't a soul in this world but what is a stranger to me." Devoid of a sociality, the siblings bring life into the world on their own. The book begins with Rinthy giving birth to their child, a little boy with a loud cry that only Rinthy cares to hear. While she is asleep, Culla takes the "chap" deep into the woods and leaves him on a pad of moss to die. He tells his sister that the baby died while she was sleeping and that he buried it.

A "tinker", a hermit peddling wares, odds and ends, and dirty "pitcher" books, finds the baby in the forest, "naked and crying no louder than a kitten." He takes the "chap" with him and finds help in the closest town.

Rinthy, as fate would have it, discovers from her brother that her child is alive. While he is out looking for work, she leaves in search of the baby. Culla returns to find her missing and begins a journey of his own, looking for Rinthy. McCarthy tracks their pitiful quests through the deeply wooded roads of mistrustful communities. Reminiscent of Deliverance, the greatest threat of all to an isolated community is a stranger. Forging deep into hostile territory, the two discover the ruthlessness of the world – a place unprotected by the hands that made it. Along the way, Culla is followed by sinister wraiths, a group of three travelers who have only evil designs in their hearts.

In his typical fashion, McCarthy spins a tale of incredible depth and grace. Outer Dark, as you can probably tell, is no walk in the park. It is morbid and filled with impending doom. Their journey feels to the reader like a walk down an alley that gets darker with each step. But McCarthy writes spare prose that adds subtlety and beauty to the tragedy. Like Child of God and Blood Meridian, this book displays McCarthy's knack for spinning tales of horror. At times McCarthy seems to be the literary offspring of Poe and Faulkner – imagine the wedding of their styles and you get a glimpse at the tone of this book.

McCarthy also displays his skill at presenting local dialects and customs. The characters' dialogue is realistic and etched with colloquialisms. This is how McCarthy brings humor to what might otherwise be an overwhelmingly depressing setting. One of my favorite lines comes from a preacher who feigns the defense of an accused criminal. He cites the Bible in his own way, "Render unto Caesar what all's hisn." The characters, although from a world so strange and foreign, seem as real as any I've ever known in a book.

Outer Dark is also a mystery. Rinthy searches for the fate of her child, while Culla tries to find the track of his sister. McCarthy writes an enigmatic prose that is anything but straightforward. For some, this style of writing may be confusing and unclear. For others, it is rewarding and rich. Sometimes we are not sure what he is describing until well into the sequence. McCarthy hides details, making each step Culla and Rinthy take a mystery all its own. His prose is a perfect complement to the plot.

This is the seventh McCarthy book that I've read (although I believe it was his second book) and I place it on equal standing with his others. His works are modern classics that will probably only be fully appreciated once he has passed on. Although it is clear that McCarthy had not yet fully developed his style of writing in this book, it is equally clear that he is an author of supreme skill and potential. I recommend this book without qualification.