Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

Category: Adults, Historical Fiction, Humor
Language: English
Keywords: Housboats Psychological Fiction semi-autobiographical Tennessee River

Written by Cormac McCarthy
Read by Richard Poe
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
Release date: August 1, 2012
Duration: 20:22:06

Set in Knoxville, Tenn., in the 1950s, Suttree introduces readers to Cornelius Suttree, a man who abandons his affluent family to live among a dissolute array of vagabonds along the Tennessee river.

A large cast of characters, largely composed of misfits and grotesques, is introduced, one of which is a dimwitted young man named Gene Harrogate, whom Suttree meets during a short stint in a work camp-style prison. His relationships with women all come to bad ends. One prostitute-girlfriend terminates the relationship in a moment of madness, smashing up the inside of their new car. He becomes involved with a teenage girl from a destitute family, but awakens in the night to find her crushed to death by a landslide that falls on their homeless encampment.

Towards the novel’s end, Suttree falls ill with typhoid fever and suffers a lengthy hallucination. This occurs after a black friend of Suttree is killed in a fight with the police and Harrogate is arrested in a failed robbery attempt. In the end, he feels his identity as an individual is affirmed by his time living in destitution, and he leaves Knoxville, seeking a new life.

“Suttree contains a humor that is Faulknerian . and a freakish imaginative flair reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor.”-Times Literary Supplement (London)

“McCarthy captures these people’s lives and speech with a tough, lyric grace,” —PW

· Contains some violence, strong language.