Silver Spring Book Discussion Group - Cities of the Plain

Date: Tue, June 16th 2009
Additional Time Info: 7:30 p.m.
Event Tags: Literature & Lectures
Location: Silver Spring Library

"Cities of the Plain" by Cormac McCarthy.

"A Texas cowboy falls in love with a Mexican prostitute, only to discover he has a rival, her pimp." Copies available at the Circulation Desk.

Summary from Wikipedia.org

The story begins in 1952 with John Grady and Billy working together on a cattle ranch just south of Alamogordo, New Mexico, not far from the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. We learn of their life and work on the ranch. The owners are kind, but small cattle ranches of this kind are not thriving. Although the cowboys barely eke out a living, it is clear that John Grady and Billy love their life -- close to the land, their horses, even the wild creatures of the rangeland. But during a visit to a brothel in Juárez, John Grady meets and falls in love with a fragile young prostitute, Magdalena, who he eventually asks to marry and live with him in the U.S. Billy understands the impossibility of the situation and attempts to dissuade John Grady, but feels obligated by his friendship to try to help the couple. But the brothel is run by Eduardo, a formidable adversary, and the opposite of John Grady in most ways, except for each man's desire to have Magdalena. Their rivalry leads inevitably to a duel, a knife fight.

As in many of McCarthy’s novels, there is a sorrowful end for the characters, the animals, even the place; however, in the epilogue, there is left a glimmer of mercy, at least for one man.