320 pages
English language
Published July 15, 2006 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
No Country for Old Men is a 2005 novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, who had originally written the story as a screenplay. The story occurs in the vicinity of the Mexico–United States border in 1980 and concerns an illegal drug deal gone awry in the Texas desert back country. Owing to the novel's origins as a screenplay, the novel has a simple writing style different from other Cormac McCarthy novels. The book was adapted into the 2007 film No Country for Old Men, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
There is a lot of Racism in this book that can't be explained as part of the plot. There are things done really well, live capturing the vernacular of a place, but I'd have trouble recommending this one.
I was pretty disappointed by this book. I found the story it tells to be overly simplistic and focussed on guns and blood at the expense of developing characters, places or motives. The action is taut enough that I could see the film being rather good, but the book feels too much like it was actually meant as a screenplay to stand up on its own.
I was pretty disappointed by this book. I found the story it tells to be overly simplistic and focussed on guns and blood at the expense of developing characters, places or motives. The action is taut enough that I could see the film being rather good, but the book feels too much like it was actually meant as a screenplay to stand up on its own.
