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: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), 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 (Birmingham 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

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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 American southwest regionalism, while at the same time interrogating and even deconstructing individualism, self-reliance, survival

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2646 words

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

Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

Dates

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