242:, eventually descends into necrophilia after finding a dead couple in a car. After this "first love" is destroyed in a fire, he becomes proactive, creating dead female partners by shooting them with his rifle. Ballard also makes no distinction between adult women and young girls, at one point killing a girl whom he had previously asked "How come you wear them britches? You cain't see nothin." Another theme examined by the novel is survival. As society pushes Ballard further and further into a corner, he degenerates into a barbaric survivalist, living in a cave, stealing food, and deviously escaping after he is captured by a group of vengeful men. Much like McCarthy's later novel
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visits his friend's home, finding only the friend's daughter and a disabled child. When the daughter rejects his sexual advances, he kills her and sets the house ablaze, storing her body in the cave. Later, Ballard shoots a couple in their car. As he flees the scene with the woman's corpse, he sees that the man survived and drove away. Prompted by the string of murders, the county sheriff begins investigating
Ballard. The county floods, and the sheriff recalls the county's history of vigilantism with the
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abandoned two-room cabin and voyeuristically spying on young couples in their cars near the Frog
Mountain turnaround. Ballard is falsely accused of rape by a woman he finds sleeping along the roadside, and is jailed for nine days. Interspersed among the narrator's story are townspeople's accounts of Ballard's early life, revealing his early violent behavior and the suicide of his father.
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sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?
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innocence, but offers to lead the men to the bodies when they threaten to hang him. Ballard brings them to the cave, where he escapes through a crevice too small for the other men to fit through. For three days, Ballard deliriously roams the cave searching for an exit. He eventually chips through a small crack to the surface and returns himself to the hospital.
261:, wherein Judge Holden declares that war is beautiful, comparing it to dance. That novel's main text ends with the judge in the center of a barroom, rallying the raucous men around him with a performance: "He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."
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English teacher and coach at Jim Ned, assigned a book report for which a 14-year-old student selected this title. Tierce was placed on paid administrative leave when the mother of the student complained. The case was investigated, and Tierce was not charged, but his teaching contract was not renewed.
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While out squirrel hunting, Ballard comes across a dead couple in an idling car. He steals the couple's money, rapes the woman's corpse, and stores her body in the attic of his cabin. Ballard's cabin burns down with the corpse inside, and he moves his remaining possessions into a nearby cave. Ballard
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as the Sevier County lawman Deputy Cotton. The movie was selected to be screened in the official competition at the 70th Venice
International Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The film received mixed to negative reviews, holding a rating of
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tells the story of Lester
Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps". Ballard is violently evicted from his home, which is sold at auction to another Sevier County resident, John Greer. Now homeless, Ballard begins squatting in an
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Ballard unsuccessfully attempts to kill John Greer, the current owner of his former home, and is shot in the process. He wakes handcuffed to a guarded hospital bed. One night, a group of men appear in his hospital room demanding to know where he stored his victims' bodies. Ballard initially feigns
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established McCarthy's interest in using extreme isolation, perversity, and violence to represent human experience. McCarthy ignores literary conventions – for example, he does not use quotation marks – and switches between several styles of writing such as matter-of-fact descriptions,
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Instead of facing trial, Ballard is sent to a mental hospital where he contracts pneumonia and dies soon after. His remains are dissected by medical students in
Memphis for three months before he is buried. In the spring of the same year, a farmer's plow falls into a sinkhole in Sevier County,
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He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's
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extremely detailed prose, vivid and picturesque pastoral imagery, and colloquial first-person narration (with the speaker remaining unidentified).
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Though the novel received critical praise, it was not a financial success. Like its predecessor
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degradation of humans and the role of fate and society in it. In an interview with
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revealing a cavernous chamber containing the bodies of seven of
Ballard's victims.
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found itself at the center of a teaching controversy at Jim Ned High School in
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and
Bluebills. Ballard's grandfather is said to have been a White Cap.
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finds director James Franco outmatched by Cormac McCarthy's novel."
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This passage bears a striking resemblance to the closing pages of
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513:. Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group. Archived from
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Blood
Meridian; or, the Evening Redness in the West
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507:"Ex-Jim Ned teacher allegedly sought sexual favors"
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291:contains much unobtrusive historical detail about
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468:Myers, Doug; Kyle Peveto (October 16, 2007).
299:-like vigilante groups of the 1890s known as
214:Overarching themes of the novel are cruelty,
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415:"Ranking Cormac McCarthy's Greatest Books"
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571:Jagernauth, Kevin (February 15, 2012).
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470:"Teacher could face charges over book"
1066:Obscenity controversies in literature
536:Jiordano, Angelo (February 9, 2012).
16:For the film based on the novel, see
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480:Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
442:"Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction"
440:Woodward, Richard (April 19, 1992).
140:. It depicts the life of a violent
1086:American novels adapted into films
389:"Cormac McCarthy's 'Child of God'"
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505:Myers, Doug (October 13, 2008).
295:, including references to local
113:Print (hardback & paperback)
1008:Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy
538:"Hillsboro hits the big screen"
279:as McCarthy's third best book.
1101:Works about capital punishment
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1091:American philosophical novels
307:Texas book report controversy
25:1973 novel by Cormac McCarthy
1071:Novels set in East Tennessee
940:Adaptations by other writers
1096:Novels about serial killers
1001:The Cormac McCarthy Journal
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269:In 2014, Jason Diamond of
226:, director of the novel's
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1046:Novels about ephebophilia
1041:Novels by Cormac McCarthy
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363:42% on review aggregator
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1081:Novels set in Appalachia
1076:Sevier County, Tennessee
1051:Novels about necrophilia
546:Marlinton, West Virginia
352:Hillsboro, West Virginia
293:Sevier County, Tennessee
179:Sevier County, Tennessee
642:. WeGotThisCovered.com.
1056:American gothic novels
956:No Country for Old Men
756:No Country for Old Men
358:as Lester Ballard and
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240:romantic relationships
948:All the Pretty Horses
787:All the Pretty Horses
511:Abilene Reporter-News
475:Abilene Reporter-News
283:Historical references
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1036:1973 American novels
1015:Wittliff Collections
819:The Passenger Series
552:on February 18, 2013
542:The Pocohontas Times
395:. September 11, 2013
319:. Kaleb Tierce, the
132:(1973) is the third
803:Cities of the Plain
517:on February 5, 2010
334:Child of God (film)
177:Set in mountainous
136:by American author
40:First edition cover
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18:Child of God (film)
1061:Random House books
930:The Kekulé Problem
903:The Sunset Limited
885:The Gardener's Son
867:The Sunset Limited
777:The Border Trilogy
716:The Orchard Keeper
630:The New York Times
486:on October 3, 2009
447:The New York Times
338:In February 2012,
321:Advanced Placement
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354:. The film stars
344:a film adaptation
311:In October 2007,
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648:. Indiewire.com.
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639:Child of God
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608:, retrieved
604:Child of God
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587:February 17,
585:. Retrieved
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556:February 17,
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393:www.vice.com
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369:Child of God
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348:Child of God
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340:James Franco
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313:Child of God
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297:Ku Klux Klan
289:Child of God
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173:Plot summary
166:Child of God
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86:Random House
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878:Screenplays
632:book review
610:January 13,
490:October 13,
425:December 3,
399:October 26,
360:Jim Parrack
236:necrophilia
150:Appalachian
1030:Categories
922:Nonfiction
724:Outer Dark
453:August 24,
419:Flavorwire
375:References
356:Scott Haze
301:White Caps
272:Flavorwire
196:Blue Bills
161:Outer Dark
577:Indiewire
265:Reception
216:isolation
192:Whitecaps
153:Tennessee
148:in 1960s
82:Publisher
964:The Road
932:" (2017)
764:The Road
521:April 5,
164:(1968),
56:Language
740:Suttree
275:ranked
142:outcast
59:English
1011:(1999)
975:(2013)
967:(2009)
959:(2007)
951:(2000)
914:(2013)
906:(2011)
895:(1996)
890:(1977)
870:(2006)
862:(1995)
839:(2022)
831:(2022)
806:(1998)
798:(1994)
790:(1992)
767:(2006)
759:(2005)
751:(1985)
743:(1979)
735:(1973)
727:(1968)
719:(1965)
708:Novels
699:Awards
218:, and
210:Themes
76:horror
68:Gothic
46:Author
851:Plays
628:1974
220:moral
134:novel
118:Pages
64:Genre
612:2023
589:2013
558:2013
523:2010
492:2009
455:2006
427:2019
401:2022
194:and
144:and
97:1973
350:in
346:of
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