Suttree - Cormac McCarthy (Book Review) 

Suttree is, in my opinion, without a doubt his greatest work along with Blood Meridian. It is FAR better than The Road or No Country

This is my favorite book. But it is also a book that I struggle to attach an ultimate meaning to. Why is Suttree the way he is? What is he running from? What is he working towards? I feel the answer is hidden somewhere in the hallucinations (with mother she's potion) and the fever dream imagery with his sickness with typhoid. He always felt unworthy because of his survival and the death of his "twin" the anti-Suttree. I think he realizes there was no twin (or perhaps there was what is known as an Irish twin?) when he remembers an infant's funeral in his home when he himself was still a baby. But lol, McCarthy doesn’t exactly paint you a clear picture. He jumbles it up in this dream or spell mother she places on Suttree. Almost like a vision quest of a young native man trying to understand his life's purpose. The death of the bum in Suttree's house boat as a metaphor to the death of Suttree's aimless, vagrant lifestyle but a rebirth from death's door into what? What has Suttree actually learned? That answer is somewhere inside the fever dreams but again McCarthy wants you to work for it. I suspect the interpretations will be different for different people. This is a book I come back to often. It is a joy to read.

Thank you, I am halfway through Suttree. It just grows and grows, the death of his son really broadens the characters' depth. As he adopts sons along the way. I'm so glad I'm reading this (after The Passenger!)

Get ye a drink Sut.

My favorite book

McCarthy is my favorite American author. While Blood Meridian is undoubtedly a masterpiece that i love, Suttree has the power to bring me back for multiple rereads. It absolutely does not get the credit it is due, but i think time will prove Suttree to be McCarthy's 1b to Blood Meridian's 1a.

Hobo asceticism and Keltic "magic" ancestral memory

The part where Harrogate almost kills himself with sewage.

I bought Suttree by accident via Audible while attempting to purchase No Country, having just finished Blood Meridian. It will likely still be my favorite mistake when it's all said and done. Not only is it a colossal work of literature, but in this case, Richard Poe's narration is unfuckwithable. 'He's Hell when he's well' 'Not a cryin' dime' '...nuthin' - just ...Gene,.' It succeds so well in putting me in a world so innocent and so cruell at the same time. It drops the reader in a fledgling post WWII America where a ne'er-do-well can go two towns over and write bad paper all day long. I've read Suttree 5 times, but I'm never ready for the hunter to release his hounds and end it.