All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy – Reviewed by Guy Portman
Texan teenager John Grady’s family farm is poised to be sold. As a result, he decides it is time to leave for pastures new. The enterprising adolescent and close friend Rawlins set off for Mexico on horseback. En route they meet a younger teen with a penchant for getting in trouble. The two companions successfully complete their journey and find a job tending horses on a ranch. Grady becomes besotted with the owner’s daughter. However, trouble is brewing for the two Americans.
Set during WWII, this moving and at times suspenseful novel is a bildungsroman-type story with nihilistic undertones. It boasts mesmerising scenery and, in Grady, an admirable protagonist, who is likeable, honest, courageous and mature beyond his years.
The setting, style and tone will be familiar to McCarthy devotees, but perhaps not the content, which does not have the shock factor or debauchery of his Southern Gothic titles, such as Blood Meridian and Child of God.
The book contains some Spanish dialogue, none of which is translated. All The Pretty Horses is Part I in The Border Trilogy.
