Wondering where to start with Cormac McCarthy? We’ve got you covered. McCarthy is known for his stories of desperation, desolation, and violence that pose profound questions about the human condition. Usually playing out in the American West and Deep South, each novel listed below offers a journey into the darkest corners of the soul. Your resilience may be tested, but it’s well worth it.
Whether you recently watched one of McCarthy’s blockbuster film adaptations or his passing in June 2023 inspired you to explore (or revisit) these novels, we’ve ranked the best Cormac McCarthy books to read right now, starting with our favorite.
“This scorched-earth epic is widely hailed as McCarthy’s masterpiece,” says The New York Times of Blood Meridian. The novel features a young runaway who joins a ruthless group of scalp hunters on their journey across the American West in the 1850s.
It employs the author’s signature difficult prose — alternating between lyrical and profane, winding and abrupt — and it’s chock-full of some of the richest and most terrifying sentences in English. These elements unite to make this our pick for McCarthy’s best book in a catalog full of award-winners and fan-favorites.
2. The Road
Coming in at a very close second (another one that’s often called the author’s masterpiece) is McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic tale about a nameless father and son wandering through a ravaged landscape. Despite the bleakness, it’s a deeply affecting story that explores resilience and the unbreakable bond between parent and child.
The Road not only won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007, but it also inspired a 2009 film starring Viggo Mortensen.
All the Pretty Horses was McCarthy’s first breakthrough success, a quintessential mix of his poetic run-on sentences, contemplations on decline, and displays of violence. In it, 16-year-old John Grady Cole leaves Texas behind in search of a new adventure in Mexico, only to discover the painful realities of adulthood.
Winner of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, this is the first of The Border Trilogy, followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, and it inspired a film adaptation starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz.
McCarthy’s ninth novel is a dark and thrilling exploration of the human condition. Set in West Texas, it follows a hunter who stumbles upon a brutal crime scene and a briefcase full of cash, setting off a cat-and-mouse chase with a relentless hitman.
McCarthy, who originally wrote this novel as a screenplay, explores fate and morality through sparse, haunting prose. Despite the violence and foreboding, No Country for Old Men is one of the author’s most popular works. It inspired a 2007 Academy Award-winning movie (including Best Picture).
5. Suttree
Though not as popular in the mainstream, Suttree is a favorite among devoted McCarthy readers.
It centers on the unconventional life of Cornelius Suttree, who leaves his wealthy family behind to live a rougher life on the Tennessee River surrounded by rag-tag side characters. It’s a melancholy examination of privilege, autonomy, and humanity’s search for meaning. While No Country for Old Men is all thrills and tension, this novel is reflective and relationship-driven.
6. Child of God
McCarthy’s shortest novel sees no shortage of depravity as Lester Ballard, a social outcast who was wronged by his community in rural Tennessee, commits increasingly perverse acts of violence. Lester’s spiral pushes him from victim to perpetrator, revealing the effects of isolation and rejection. Though his subject matter is shocking, McCarthy’s third novel (written in 1973) is undoubtedly thought-provoking.
7. Outer Dark
Yet another McCarthy novel set in rural Tennessee, Outer Dark explores sin, guilt, and redemption as two siblings wander the Appalachian mountains.
After conceiving a child together, the brother, Culla, abandons the infant in the woods and sets out to live a moral life, while his sister, Rinthy, searches tirelessly for her missing son. Full of metaphors and atmospheric imagery, this story is McCarthy through and through (complete with long journeys through desolate landscapes).
The meandering lives of a fatherless boy, a bootlegger, and a hermit weave and intersect throughout McCarthy’s debut, set in Tennessee during the early 20th century. The Orchard Keeper clearly sets the stage for the rest of McCarthy’s body of work, biblical themes and melancholy vibes included. This story is full of nostalgia for a simpler time and explores the inevitability of progress.
