Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West

Erik Hage (SUNY, Cobleskill)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1985

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Cormac McCarthy has staked a formidable name on a long list of literary achievements, but his novel Blood Meridian (1985) remains regarded as his masterpiece. How, exactly, does one categorize it, though? A fair enough question without a single answer, for it is at once an historical novel, a striking grotesque, and a heaving and ambitious American book of enormous scope; moreover, it is a heightened rumination on the violence that McCarthy sees as potential in any gathering of human beings, be it an entire civilization or a ragtag, multicultural band of commissioned scalpers, such as Blood Meridian’s Glanton Gang, who gallop across a blood-soaked, nightmare vision of the American Southwest and Mexico during the period …

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1998 words

Citation: Hage , Erik . "Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 March 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31208, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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