Cormac McCarthy

This guy is obviously wildly talented, excruciatingly so.  I just finished Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West and feel like I have to start it right over again so I can try to deconstruct it.  I'd say he has the market on evil pretty much cornered.  I've never read more horrifying descriptions of death and battle and murder and survival (except in 'The Road', also by McCarthy).  It's all so devastating, but it's like roadkill, you have to look.

It took me a long time to get through this one because I could only digest the brutality in small doses.  It's fabulously written, though upsetting to the core.  My new rule is to limit myself to one McCarthy novel per year.  It's all I can handle, but I can't quit reading him altogether.  He's too good.

I wish he'd write a memoir.  I'd love to know what shaped such a twisted mind.  If you like a battle between good and evil, with a huge helping of evil, then look no further.  But keep a dictionary handy.  McCarthy's got a wicked vocabulary.  Or maybe he's just plain wicked.