I have spent days walking through the backstreets of 1951 Knoxville, Tennessee. With Suttree, catching fish, fighting cats that claim his catch before I get them. Finding why the river is so flowing with the entrails not only of the gutted catch, but of the waste that’s tossed by human life.
McCarthy is nothing if he is not detailed with the flotsam of humanity. There is such purpose yet commonality to every step each character takes along his path in life.
He leaves me as weary as the fighting of the demons in Silent Hill. There is such gloom in words that describe a city as fogged yet clear with depression and lost souls as ever the abandoned streets that James in SH 2 and I have walked along.
With Suttree, I do feel safer somehow, yet carry that board with nail at the ready. I do not fear the people, but the monsters are still there.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology