Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

Cormac McCarthy

May 2007 · Recorded Books · Narrated by Richard Poe

About this audiobook

Author of the National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas frontier. His birth ended his mother's life in Tennessee. Scrawny and wiry, he runs away at the age of 14. As he makes his way westward, the impoverished and illiterate youth finds trouble at every turn. Then he's recruited by Army irregulars, lured by the promise of spoils and bound for Mexico. Churning a dusty path toward destiny, he witnesses unknown horrors and suffering-and yet, as if shielded by the almighty hand of God, he survives to breathe another day. Earning McCarthy comparisons to greats like Melville and Faulkner, Blood Meridian is a masterwork of rare genius. Gifted narrator Richard Poe wields the author's prose like a man born to speak it.

Ratings and reviews

Richard Poe is wonderful, the story dark and grinning in it's slow and and savage pacing. You will ponder yourself, those that came before and after. A perfect audio experience.

The narration was pretty good, the right tone for the story, easily discernable character voices. The story wasn't for me. It's full of one dimensional characters that don't develop over time, events that are fully self-contained and don't come together to form a clear plot, and similes, similes, similes, nearly all of which served more to distract than to enhance. For example (minor spoiler), when it comes to character development, we learn that one guy is interested in cultures and history. That idea is reinforced a few times. And if you're like me, you're expecting some kind of payoff, a point at which he makes a turn, discovers or reveals something about himself because of his interest in the past, changes in some way, but that doesn't happen. And maybe that's supposed to be the point? Whatever others seem to connect with in this story, I missed it.

I'll cut to the chase. the audio is broken up to the point that I can't recognize this version from the paperback. the download is flawed.

About the author

Cormac McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20, 1933. He attended the University of Tennessee, but interrupted his studies for four years to join the U.S. Air Force. He died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., on June 13, 2023. He was 89. His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. His other works include Outer Dark, Child of God, Suttree, and Blood Meridian. All the Pretty Horses, the first part of the Border Trilogy, which also includes The Crossing and Cities of the Plains, won the National Book Award in 1992. His novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into a film in 2007. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road. He has also written plays and screenplays.