New in paperback, No Country for Old Men is Cormac McCarthy's latest story about the Texas-Mexico border. (His newest novel, “The Road” is scheduled to debut in hardback in September 2006.)

This was my first read of this author. I’ve known about this him for a long time, but haven’t ever taken the time to dig into his material. A friend has suggested several times that I pick up All the Pretty Horses, but this was the first one to jump out at me… I’ll confess, in the bookstore at Boston’s Logan Airport.

After McCarthy separated from his 2nd wife Anne in 1976, he moved to El Paso, TX, where he lives to this day. You can tell from this that he really “gets” the landscape that exists along the Texas/Mexican border. That theme in itself is very timely, and relevance is important to me in all but my most escapist of moments.

From the opening act, this story haunted me. I couldn’t put it down. I have to say that I’m always looking for redemption in stories, and I didn’t quite find it in this one, but there were moments of stark beauty, moments of majesty and power, and cutting wisdom.

It starts as a story of a drug deal gone bad. I couldn’t figure out the title initially, but as the story grew, so did my appreciation of the main character (Bell, not Moss. Read it, you’ll get it). It grows from there into an examination of several of the players.

The driving theme of this brilliant work by one of the greatest living authors is that we really have changed as a society and as a people. We’re simply worse. We’re worse to each other and worse to ourselves. You need only watch archived news from 20 years ago and compare it with the news of today. As a nation, as a people we’re fatter, meaner, and spend less time on the things that really matter. Look around at reality TV. I made a prediction almost 20 years ago after seeing The Running Man that we would get to a point as humankind where we would expect violence, sex and even death in our gameshows, perhaps in my lifetime. We’re a civilization sliding to a brink, and I’m not sure if anyone of us knows for sure what’s on the other side.

In examining a “good ole boy” (working class Llewellyn Moss), a country sheriff (Ed Tom Bell), two hit men (Wells and Chigurh), and a wife (Carla Jean) the story twists and turns to its inevitable ending. I really appreciate this author’s gift for character development.

I’ll give this book a strong B+, and leave you with this quote from it:

“After a while he said: It’s not about knowin where you are. It’s about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. Or anybody’s. You don’t start over. That’s what it’s about. Ever step you take is forever. You can’t make it go away. None of it. You understand what I’m sayin?

I think so.

I know you don’t but let me try it one more time. You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don’t count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I don’t know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who’s laying there?”