The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

The Crossing is the second of the three volume Border Trilogy from Cormac McCarthy. As I read many books at once I must confess that this one took awhile. The book centers on a young man named Billy Parham. Billy, his younger brother Boyd and his parents live on a small farm in New Mexico.

This is a difficult book. There is much meandering thought and much wisdom being imparted from the various characters.

As the book begins Billy and his Father are attempting to trap a wolf that has come up across the border from Mexico and is killing local livestock. McCarthy has been compared frequently to Hemingway and in the writing of Billy's attempts to trap the wolf one sees it. The detail given to each step is exquisite. I must confess many of the terms fall on deaf ears to me but i was able to follow what he was doing.

Billy cannot catch the wolf despite his best efforts. Finally one evening he sets a trap, under the remains of a fire that has been cookfire for some travelers the night before. As he tells his father this his father warns him to return at first light and hope that no one else attempts to use the fire-sight. And he goes to bed and the authors states " that he never saw him again." A very jarring line as one has no idea what is to come.

That morning when Billy arrives he has caught the wolf. He is transfixed, the wolf is caught by the foot but Billy watches her and cannot bring himself to shoot her. For the next fifty pages of the book we see Billy taking the wolf to Mexico. Muzzled, leashed, and taught to follow along on a rope behind the horse Billy travels until his story takes a turn he did not wish. He wanted to return the wolf to the wild, suffice to say for Billy Parham things often do not happen as planned.

Along the way in this section of the book and others Billy meets many different people, most of them Mexican. He meets good people and bad but the good outweigh the bad by far. One of the most compelling and noticeable parts of the book is that, for all the hard luck and sadness that comes to Billy , most of the people of the Mexico he travels through are overwhelmingly generous and kind. Travelers are fed and housed as a matter of fact to be taken as normal.

When the wolf part of the story comes to it's conclusion Billy returns home, slowly and with no great plan, and finds his home abandoned. Billy learns that his father and mother were murdered by horse thieves. Billy, in his stoic way gets his brother Boyd from family friends that have been taking care of him and they head out on the trail. They never come to a spoken decision about their plans but yet they know where they are going.

They cross the border in Arizona and then their story beings. In Mexico again. The same frustration occurs in this book as the previous, many of the characters speak in untranslated Spanish. In cases where necessary I had to use my Spanish to English translator. Still the payoff is worth it.

If you are looking for the typical Western with quick pace and easily resolved problems this is not the book for you. McCarthy's characters do not speak much but they think much and we as readers are given a glimpse of those thoughts on life and death and all the other thoughts we all have late at night.

Along the way Billy and Boyd meet some characters easily remembered. To advance the themes of the story these characters often have much to say, and much that they say is shaded in gray, with duplicate meanings and understandings.

This man is an exquisite writer. It is not easy. It is work. McCarthy however writes characters as deep and thoughtful and affecting as any you will find.

Be ready to take time. Take breaks if you need. I finished two books between the wolf section and Billy's return home, I even contemplated giving up. I did not and I was greatly rewarded. This is a fantastic book. A book that will stick with your memory for a long, long time.

I have a couple of biographies to read but I am looking forward to finishing the series soon. It is something to be on a shelf with Hemingway.