Product Description
Outer Dark is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution.
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 ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS EVER!!!!
I had to read this book and another of his for my english class. All of them were terrible. It was a waste of my time and money (about $22.00!!). It is too descriptive, too country, and too tedious. There is no plot, and I could not relate to its characters in any way whatsoever.
Stay away from Cormac McCarthy books, AT ALL COSTS!!
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 No country for old faint-hearts! ( mikesbookbox )
One of Cormac McCarthy's early novels, set in a rural landscape somewhere in a pre-modern Appalachia, "The Outer Dark" is a dark disturbing story about Rinthy Holme's search for her lost baby, the product of an incestuous union with her brother Culla, who unknown to Rinthy, has abandoned the baby deep in the woods, telling Rinthy he died. The child, left to die, survives, rescued by a tinker.
There's no great depth - or twists - of plot in "The Outer Dark". Rather than plot-driven, the story is structured around two separate journeys made by brother and sister, the narrative cross-cutting intermittently from one journey to the other: Rinthy (on discovery of Culla's lie) travelling the countryside in search of lost child and Culla wandering the woods indeterminately - a structure that allows McCarthy scope at once to describe Rinthy and Culla's wanderings in the landscape they pass through and the mixed-bag of eccentric, grotesque characters they encounter on their travels.
McCarthy's writing is unsurpassed when describing a landscape and its people and their way of life. Marvellous set-pieces involving Rinthy and Culla, in encounters with peculiar cranky backwoods southerners who cross their separate paths - often living in squalor in dilapidated shacks and isolated cabins deep in the woods - are full of crackling dialogue and sardonic wit. Snappy, colourful, these 'run-ins' with crusty 'locals' are the highlights of the novel for this reader.
A dark mood permeates "The Outer Dark". When Culla flees the scene of his evil act, careering through the dark depths of the forest in full flight, his hands are outstretched before him "against whatever the dark might hold". McCarthy creates a strong sense of foreboding and menace. For Culla, whatever the 'dark' might hold, remains to be seen. Out of the 'dark' too, like outcasts straight from Hell, the coming of three terrifying figures roaming the land with murderous intent, manifested in the shock-horror violence of a gruesome, disturbing climax.
Welcome to Cormac McCarthy Country! If you enjoyed this walk through the woods, book up for another trip into McCarthy country with "Child of God" or "The Orchard Keeper". Another 'loner-living-in-isolated-cabin-in-the-woods' novel you may enjoy is "Julius Winsome" by Gerard Donovan.
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brilliant, disturbing
The language of this relatively short novel is beautiful and haunting. Even though McCarthy's writing style has changed a little with each book over the past 40 years, each stage along the way has its own unique brilliance, and the somewhat sparce prose of "Outer Dark" is no exception. McCarthy has an ability like no other author I've read to describe a landscape - both exterior or interior - with such startling clarity and yet with such few words. McCarthy has no need for interior monologue, excessive dialogue, or an omniscient narrator; with the slightest subtle gestures he shares intimate and profound emotions and concepts with his reader. "Outer Dark" (as well as McCarthy's other works) is brilliant in this way.
The novel is also quite disturbing. Although they are only in a few short scenes, the mysterious trio, personifying the utter depths of (in)human violence and depravity, refuse to leave the reader's thoughts after the book has been finished. A couple of their scenes (really the only ones they appear in) left me with a very real sense of dread that didn't leave for a few days.
The actual violence of the book only takes up a couple pages of the entire novel, but as another reviewer stated, the feeling of the entire book is one of violence and oppressive fear. Once again, this is a testimony to McCarthy's mastery of language and storytelling. Because of this, the actual violence that there is is that much more powerful. I found this book in every way as disturbing as the much longer, much more violent "Blood Meridian."
From a literary standpoint, McCarthy's books are absolutely inspiring. His aesthetics present humanity at its basest, most fearsome state, but simultaneously shows slivers of the goodness and nobility in mankind, and maybe (I emphasize MAYBE) the hope that lays hidden beneath his horrifying portrait of existence.
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Outer Dark reads like William Faulkner. ( -booklover- )
Better known for his later novels The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain, Blood Meridian, and No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy's second novel, Outer Dark (1968), is set in Appalachia around the turn of the twentieth century. As the title suggests, dark tones permeate the novel, along with Biblical imagery. The novel reads like William Faulkner. It is gothic, apocalyptic, poetic, and full of mystery. It tells the story of a woman, Rinthy, who gives birth to her brother Culla's baby. After leaving the newborn boy in the woods to die, Culla tells his sister the baby died of natural causes. Rinthy sets out to find her baby. Meanwhile, a tinker finds the infant in the woods. As Culla walks from town to town rather aimlessly searching for work, Rinthy attempts to locate the tinker and her baby. In his travels, Culla is wrongfully accused of theft, murder, trespassing, and inciting a herd of hogs to riot. Ultimately, both Culla and Rintha are subjected to punishment for their original sin. Though a minor work, Outer Dark reveals the literary genius of Cormac McCarthy. Recommended.
G. Merritt
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 Inner Dark, As Well ( danielherak )
Cormac McCarthy grabbed me with both THE ROAD and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and so I decided to explore some of his earlier works. The first thing one notices upon doing so is that McCarthy's own writing style has changed dramatically. Whereas the more recent novels use sparse writing to evoke powerful emotions, his past works are far more verbose, with run on sentences filled with all the adjectives one could imagine. In my opinion, I prefer the sparse writing instead.
But the earlier writing style is not so distracting as to eclipse the story. Typical for McCarthy, it is not a happy one. A young woman gives birth to a baby sired by her brother. When the brother leaves the newborn in the wild to die, telling his sister that it died while she slept, the baby is discovered by another who takes it as his own. When the sister discovers the lie and goes hunting for the baby, both brother and sister take paths through the wilderness leading from danger to danger.
Like Anton Chigurh, the one man killing machine in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, who has no known history and is as lethal as an inhuman force of nature, OUTER DARK has its own cluster of human psychopathy. A trio of travelers killing those they meet, with no reason provided, haunt the pages and bring destruction with them simply for its own sake. The two times Culla, the brother, meets up with this trio, there is a vague sense of violence underlying the encounters. The reader cannot help but wonder exactly who these people are, how could they ever have met and developed the kinship that they apparently share, and what is their purpose. None of these questions have answers.
McCarthy keeps the reader off balance through excellent use of subtleties. The whispered query of whether Culla should be shot, the 'mystery meat', and the missing eyeball, all create a bizarre sense that something seriously is out of place. But, although we might have our ideas (often too disturbing to really consider), we cannot put our finger on exactly what that something might be.
That the sister hunts for her lost child against all odds is, perhaps, McCarthy holding out some hope for us in an otherwise bleak and violent environment. Though in the end, hope is not enough, in McCarthy's world, to get us where we need to be. OUTER DARK may not be pleasant, but it is the work of an excellent author who explores those shadowy regions many authors fear to tread, and who has rightfully earned the reputation of a master.
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