Summer Book #21

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

What a strange book! Having read some of McCarthy's work, this was not entirely surprising.  What was surprising was the amount of necrophelia in this book.

Our protagonist is one Lester Ballard. He is a mere 27 years old, but I didn't know that until I was more than half way through the book. He seemed much older. Ballard is recently released from prison.  I don't know why he was there; either I missed it or it wasn't mentioned.  Anyway,  Ballard lost his family land while incarcerated,  and he is not happy about this. Strangely, he seems to have befriended the person who bought the land. Since he has no place of his own, Ballard squats in an abandoned house in the woods.

Here's where things get gross... Ballard comes across a car in the woods (the was a lot of backseat action in this book), but the occupants have died in a compromising position.  Ballard pulls the guy corpse off the girl corpse, and has his way with her. As if that isn't enough, he takes the girl corpse back to his squatter paradise to have his way with her more times. Dude even goes into town to buy her clothes! One night after his sexual conquest, his squatter digs burn down.  He then moves his belongings to a cave. He comes across another couple , kills them, has his way with the body, and takes her to the cave. He ends up having to move again, and takes the bodies with him. He is eventually caught, put in a mental hospital and dies. Sometime after his death, the find his final abode, and in it, seven corpses. Ewwww!

I kept hoping Ballard would redeem himself in some way, but he never did. I guess you could say he was the product of his environment: his mother ran off when he was young and his father killed himself. He didn't have anyone to love him and teach him better.

Despite the weirdness,  I did like this book. It was different,  gross, but different.