Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

McCarthy has a way of making brutality and darkness plain and simple. The first time you meet ‘The Judge’ you sort of paint this portrait of a giant hairless alien like human with a western flair, who is chaotic and sadistic but learned in many subjects and full of philosophy; yet, McCarthy makes the Judge to be some sort of supernatural being, this god-like machine that appears where chaos is brewing and fuels the fire further.

It tells you a lot about a novel when an antagonist is one of the most resonating aspects. In general, the prose is masterful and beautiful in descriptions from the gruesome to descriptions of landscape in americana - somehow marking the violence with the backdrop of something beautiful.