Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

Lindsey Michael Banco (University of Saskatchewan)

Ed. by Padraig Kirwan, Goldsmiths College, University of London
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 1994

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Crossing (1994), the second novel of Cormac McCarthy’s critically acclaimed Border Trilogy, is not a sequel to All the Pretty Horses (1992), nor is it quite a prequel to Cities of the Plain (1998). The Crossing, which tells the tale of adolescent trapper Billy Parham, is, in fact, set before the events of the first novel, All the Pretty Horses, which is the story of sixteen-year-old cowboy John Grady Cole. This is in violation of the chronological conventions expected of a trilogy. Cities of the Plain brings John Grady and Billy together.

The novels of the Border Trilogy are all set on the borderlands of the United States and Mexico, bearing the stamp of …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2646 words

Citation: Banco, Lindsey Michael. "The Crossing". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 November 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31210, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article