Suttree.

MCCARTHY, Cormac.

$15,000.00

Item Number: 132415

New York: Random House, 1979.

First edition of the author’s fourth novel and what many consider to be his finest. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Howell Pearce with best wishes Cormac McCarthy.” The recipient, Howard Pearce was a close friend of McCarthy’s and a Memphis poet. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Jack Ribik. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional example.

Suttree is the fourth of McCarthy's novels to be published, but he had started it well before his first, The Orchard Keeper, appeared in 1965 to great critical acclaim. The principle scene of Suttree is Knoxville, Tennessee in the early 1950's. The central figure, Cornelius Suttree, is a fisherman who lives in a dilapidated houseboat on the river. Estranged from his prominent family, he has withdrawn from the society they represent, choosing instead a different world inhabited by people who live precarious, desperate, often violent lives. "McCarthy is a writer to he read, to be admired, and quite honestly- envied" (Ralph Ellison).