SUTTREE

In this semi-autobiographical work, a man abandons his life of privilege to live among eccentrics, criminals and the impoverished of Knoxville. Suttree is a humorous, compelling tapestry of life on the edge from Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road and Blood Meridian. ''Suttree contains a humour that is Faulknerian in its gentle wryness, and a freakish imaginative flair'' - Times Literary Supplement 1951. Cornelius Suttree lives alone, exiled on a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River. As we meet him, Suttree watches the police haul the body of a suicidal man from the water. Amongst the living, the river is home to hermits, sex workers, alcoholics - and a witch. Conjuring James Joyce''s Ulysses, Suttree wanders the river with a detachment and wry humour, encountering a broad cast of humanity as he does - even as dereliction and destitution threaten the last of his remaining dignity. ''Suttree is like a good, long scream in the ear'' - New York Times Praise for Cormac McCarthy: ''McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute'' - Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren ''His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power'' - Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series ''[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence'' - Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain