The Stonemason - (Vintage International) by Cormac McCarthy (Paperback)

About the Book

Set in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s, The Stonemason is a multi-generational drama about black men struggling to maintain their dignity. The drama evokes the subtleties of Grecian tragedy with the mastery of character, plot, and pathos that distinguishes the acclaimed fiction of this recent National Book Award winner.

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road comes a taut, expansively imagined drama about four generations of an American family.

The setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world."

Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken--or dishonored--the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.

Review Quotes

"McCarthy has achieved something only a few artists even attempt: He has created his own world...and made it his own--beautiful, nightmarish, isolated." --Wall Street Journal

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.