is a great example of this master storyteller's art. It is a novel without any hint at artifice. It can be read by virtually anyone. What distinguishes it from equally "accessible" works is that it can be read on so many levels. In other words, it is a work that naturally has broad appeal. It will appeal to those who enjoy reading about disturbed murderers and psychopaths. On the other hand it will hold enormous interest to readers who are thoroughly familiar with the Southern Gothic fiction of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Not to denigrate McCarthy, but on the surface, this work might even be called "Faulkner Lite." McCarthy's acknowledgment to Faulkner in fact occurs in the opening sentence of the novel (which also happens to be the work's longest sentence) < They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and pitching in the ruts and the musicians on chairs in the truckbed teetering and tuning their instruments, the fat man with the guitar grinning and gesturing to others in a car behind and bending to give a note to the fiddler who turned a fiddlepeg and listened with a wrinkled face. > This alliterative run-on is clearly McCarthy's way of paying homage to the master.

Like Faulkner and O'Connor, this novelist peoples his fiction with grotesque, or at the least, exaggerated characters. The Cornelius Suttree of the novel could just as easily be a member of the Sutpen family in Faulkner. And the main character in this work, Lester Ballad, is every bit as amoral and unconcerned with human life as is "The Misfit" in "A Good Man is Hard to Find." In fact, if one were looking for a literary model for Lester Ballad, one should turn to O'Connor before going to Hannibal Lecter. Ballard is a kind of amalgam of The Misfit and Harper Lee's Boo Radley, the "child of God" sequestered away in . The difference being that whereas Boo Radley was only a scarecrow, Ballard is something far more sinister and malignant.

Malignancy, in fact, is what this novel is about essentially. Lester Ballard is a tumor that has been growing and festering within the body of the community. He is a case of "out of sight, out of mind." Because he has been repeatedly shunted off by the insular southern town that McCarthy depicts, he is free in his isolation to let his psychotic mind's tendrils expand and propagate unchecked. McCarthy's underlying message may be that the more we neglect those on the periphery of society, the more we invite evil into our lives. The very title of the book seems to beg the question. It recalls in some respects Christ's warning/appeal that "as you do unto the least of these (God's children), so you do unto me." So in a very large sense, Lester Ballard represents every street-person you pass in San Francisco or New York or wherever you happen to be a member of a larger community. Ballard is in this sense more avenging angel than irredeemable villain. The malignancy is growing in our collective communities, for the most part unseen, but festering, nevertheless. The greater our neglect, the greater the chance for evil rebounding upon us.

If you have not read McCarthy, this is a great place to start. You can read this novel in one or two sittings, as it flows so smoothly and uninterruptedly that you will not even notice that he is planting these seeds of inquiry as you are rolling along. Yet after you put the book down, you will no doubt take away a lot more than you noticed in passing.


Loveless.   October 7, 2000
 31 out of 33 found this review helpful

McCarthy even goes so far as to force the reader to *identify* with Lester Ballard.... Not Ballard the serial killer, or Ballard the necrophiliac, but rather that "misplaced and loveless simian" scavenging the Tennessee backwoods for some handhold of purpose and adulation. A grizzled wood troll haunting the rutted roads of civilized men, he becomes a secret collector of beautiful objects, the corpses of his victims laid alongside stuffed animals won at the county fair (Ballard is an expert marksman). He may even have found a place for himself in the "mountain man" communities of old, tending his kudzu and hunting hare and squirrel in the frigid hill country, in a land bereft of money and property (Ballard's madness is ignited by the foreclosure and auctioning off of his family estate in the opening chapter). As it is, civilization has encroached to dislodge his persona, making him the free captain of this Hell ship, a soul-shaking Southern gothic if there ever was one.

McCarthy presents us with such an unforgettable case-study of an irredeemably *loveless* existence. Lester Ballard, like all alienated citizens who murder their own, is *our* monster, the watchman and exterminating angel of our own pat, irrational, self-satisfied civil society. Unlike most purveyors of the mass-murderer yarn, McCarthy's austere, hacksaw language cuts a heinously convincing, but always humanistic portrayal of mental illness stemming from the most extreme alienation, urging us to forget Bret Easton Ellis, to dismiss Hannibal Lecter, the figure of Lester Ballard striking to the heart of things with each finely minutia'd stab of chiseled prose, a star of madness in this, the most legitimate representation of a lone wolf serial-killer you will ever read.


why random violence exists in the world   August 10, 1999
 16 out of 17 found this review helpful

No one finishes Child of God with an indifferent impression. Usually I'm sad to finish a good book, but I was happy when this one was over. Child of God is not a modern day morality tale but a complex book that produces a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. The pleasure is derived from the beautiful language, language especially effective when used to describe a character. It's the subject matter which made my mind uncomfortable. The details are too real, the subject too macabre for a moral human to enjoy. At times Lester Ballard seems closer to the "sympathetic apes" in the story than to a man with a conscience. The first sentence and last twenty pages alone are worth the purchase price of the book; what comes in between will race your pulse and curdle your stomach. Don't read this on a camping trip in the woods, but read it.


Brilliant, fascinating, not for everybody.   April 19, 1999
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

"Child of God" is the story of Lester Ballard, outcast, necrophiliac, and psychopath in the Tennessee mountains. I'm sure some people would find this subject matter repellent, but I think the book has just enough of a lyrical quality to keep it from being too distasteful. In the hands of a less talented writer, it could have degenerated into a silly Stephen King-type horror story. In about two hundred pages, Cormac McCarthy creates a powerful and vivid portrait of a twisted individual, one I don't think I'll ever forget. This book is a perfect companion piece to his earlier novel "Outer Dark." (Both of these books would make great movies.)


Chicken Soup For The Necrophiliacys Soul   February 16, 2002
 11 out of 13 found this review helpful

I read McCarthy's "Blood Meridian", loved it and decided to check out some of his other works. So I picked this up with huge expectations. In the end, I was not disappointed. Now, on with the review:

McCarthy seems to have taken bits of the life of Wisconsin killer, Ed Gein, combined them with bit of local (Tennessee) legend and created a very entertaining (albeit twisted) tale.

While this work is a little rough-around-the-edges (after about 30 pages that becomes part of its charm), it moves at a very lively pace, and is packed with some of the most disturbing (often done in an oddly humorous way) scenes ever put down on paper.

McCarthy has a great sense for rural America. Not that cute, Lake Wobegonish ruralism. This is closer to Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood". It may not be politically correct but Hillbillies are creepy and Lester Ballard, the novel's protagonist, is the creepiest Hillbilly.

The great thing about Lester is that he isn't blatantly good or evil, he's just lives from day-to-day not unlike an animal. Animals need to eat, sleep, and mate. Lester eats what he can shoot, sleeps in a shack on an old mattress and mates...well, that's were Lester's problems really manifest themselves. Let's just say that to every problem, there's a solution.

My only complaint is that a promising narrative device (using the locals to fill in Lester's past) is dropped early in the book. The final chapters (and, believe me, they are priceless) more than make up for this flaw.

So, if you're still wondering rather this book is worth purchasing, let me just quote Lester Ballard and say "Any time you get to feelin' froggy - jump."