No Country for Old Men

Starred review from December 21, 2009
Barrett delivers a standout performance in an artful abridgement that captures the essence of McCarthy's classic. Set along the border between the U.S. and Mexico, the story follows the tragic and bloody adventures of Llewelyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and the sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh. When Moss makes off with millions of dollars of drug money, his life changes forever as both Bell and Chigurh pursue him, the latter leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. Barrett's portrayal of Moss, Bell, and Chigurh are pitch perfect as are his renditions of the secondary characters and of the sheriff's first-person reminiscences interspersed throughout the novel. This audio book is a rare gem and a mandatory listening for McCarthy fans. A Knopf hardcover.

Starred review from May 23, 2005
Seven years after Cities of the Plain
brought his acclaimed Border Trilogy to a close, McCarthy returns with a mesmerizing modern-day western. In 1980 southwest Texas, Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, stumbles across several dead men, a bunch of heroin and $2.4 million in cash. The bulk of the novel is a gripping man-on-the-run sequence relayed in terse, masterful prose as Moss, who's taken the money, tries to evade Wells, an ex–Special Forces agent employed by a powerful cartel, and Chigurh, an icy psychopathic murderer armed with a cattle gun and a dangerous philosophy of justice. Also concerned about Moss's whereabouts is Sheriff Bell, an aging lawman struggling with his sense that there's a new breed of man (embodied in Chigurh) whose destructive power he simply cannot match. In a series of thoughtful first-person passages interspersed throughout, Sheriff Bell laments the changing world, wrestles with an uncomfortable memory from his service in WWII and—a soft ray of light in a book so steeped in bloodshed—rejoices in the great good fortune of his marriage. While the action of the novel thrills, it's the sensitivity and wisdom of Sheriff Bell that makes the book a profound meditation on the battle between good and evil and the roles choice and chance play in the shaping of a life. Agent, Amanda Urban
.

June 15, 2005
McCarthy has reached the pinnacle of literary success, with critical recognition, best-seller status, and cult-author cachet. It is a difficult position to maintain, and it doesn't help that his idiosyncratic prose style, which tries to wrest poetry from hardscrabble lives, has become increasingly mannered. In his latest novel, McCarthy stumbles headlong into self-parody. Llewelyn Moss is a humble welder who hunts not for sport but to put food on the table. Tracking a wounded antelope one morning, Moss finds an abandoned truck filled with bullet-ridden corpses, sealed packages of "Mexican brown," and $2 million in cash. He leaves the dope behind but takes the money, changing in that moment from hunter to prey. Moss is tailed by Anton Chigurh, an updated version of the satanic Judge Holden from "Blood Meridian "(1985). Straight-arrow Sheriff Bell, the old man of the title, tries his best to save young Moss, but Chigurh is unstoppable. McCarthy lays out his rancorous worldview with all the nuance and subtlety of conservative talk radio. It is hard to believe that this is the same person who wrote "Suttree "(1979). A made-for-television melodrama filled with guns and muscle cars, this will nonetheless be in demand; for public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ "4/1/05.] -Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2005
Dark themes suffuse McCarthy's first offering since his completion of " The Border Trilogy" , wose opening installment, " All the Pretty Horses" earned him both the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. Texas welder Llewelyn Moss makes a dubious discovery while out hunting antelope near the banks of the Rio Grande: a dead man, a stash of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash. Moss packs out the money, knowing his actions will imperil him for the rest of his life. He's soon on the run, left to his own devices against vengeful drug dealers, a former Special Forces agent, and a psychopathic freelance killer with ice blue eyes. Shades of Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, and Faulkner resonate in McCarthy's blend of lyrical narrative, staccato dialogue, and action-packed scenes splattered with bullets and blood. McCarthy fans will revel in the author's renderings of the raw landscapes of Mexico and the Southwest and the precarious souls scattered along the border that separates the two. Many are the men here who maim in the name of drugs. "If you killed 'em all," says the local sheriff, "they'd have to build an annex onto hell." (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)