This was my first McCarthy book. At first it came off as dull, everything written matter of factly, no commentary or insight from the characters. As it went on though I realized the banality of the prose highlights how depraved and senseless the violent acts of Lester Ballard are, the nonchalant shooting of the boy in the truck was especially heart-wrenching for me.

He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?