The Orchard Keeper - (Vintage International) by Cormac McCarthy (Paperback)

About the Book

An American classic, The Orchard Keeper is the first novel by one of America's finest novelists and author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller All the Pretty Horses. Set in a small, remote community in rural Tennessee, it tells the story of a young boy and the outlaw bootlegger who, unbeknownst to either of them, has killed the boy's father.

Book Synopsis

The acclaimed first novel from one of America's most celebrated novelists, the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road - Set is a remote community in rural Tennessee in the years between the two world wars, it is the story of a young boy and a bootlegger who, unbeknownst to either of them, has killed the boy's father.

The boy, John Wesley Rattner, and the outlaw, Marion Sylder-together with Rattner's Uncle Ather, who belongs to a former age in his communion with nature and his stoic independence-enact a drama that seems born of the land itself. All three are heroes of an intense and compelling celebration of values lost to time and industrialization.

Review Quotes

"McCarthy has a voice that is unmistakably his own ... with a passion most writers couldn't muster or wouldn't dare." --The Boston Globe

About the Author

The novels of the American writer, Cormac McCarthy, have received a number of literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men--the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. He died in 2023.