Dorothy Parker’s characters are real to me, perhaps because of the era, perhaps because, though this was not as my family lived, it was something I had watched in nightly movies on Channel 5’s The Early show.
McCarthy’s characters are real because of how they live; McCarthy building the character into his more vivid descriptions of their environment. Again, this is not as I have ever lived, but Suttree indeed pulses with a life that is disturbing. This must be, for me, its appeal. The man, the place, the deeds done that mama warned about. There’s hopelessness, yet one thin fishing line that will not break, and the patience of the fisherman to fight against the slapping sea and flapping fish to reel in something that would make the battle worth the while.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology