Blood Meridian

About this book

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West is a 1985 Western novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. It was McCarthy's fifth book.The narrative follows a teenage runaway referred to only as "the kid", with the bulk of the text devoted to his experiences with the Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters who massacred Indians and others on the United States–Mexico borderlands in 1849 and 1850. The role of antagonist is gradually filled by the end of the novel by the demonic Judge Holden, an extremely large and intelligent man who is utterly devoted to violence and conflict. Much of the book is based on non-fictional Glanton gang member Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, which has been criticized as unreliable (though Chamberlain himself is not a character in Blood Meridian); nevertheless, Blood Meridian is historically accurate in general, and includes numerous references to contemporary occurrences.Although the novel initially earned lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since become widely recognized not only as McCarthy's masterpiece, but also as one of the acclaimed American novels of the 20th century.Literatura Estrangeira