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    Cities of the Plain
    Cities of the Plain
    Cities of the Plain
    Audiobook9 hours

    Cities of the Plain

    Written by Cormac McCarthy

    Narrated by Frank Muller

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In his novels, best-selling author Cormac McCarthy creates a western landscape filled with characters that are both myhic and authentic. Cities of the Plain, the stunning conclusion of his award-winning Border trilogy, brings together John Grady Cole and Billy Parham-the two lifelong friends who began their adventures in All the Pretty Horses. It is 1952. As Grady and Billy work a remote New Mexico ranch, Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute. Determined to free her from her owner, Grady embarks on his dangerous quest of the heart. Billy tries to protect and help him, but the forces at work soon demand sacrifices greater than either can control. Capturing visions of the American West during its last decades, McCarthy's powerful work is destined to leave a permanent mark on contemporary literature. You don't have to read the other books in the trilogy to enjoy superstar narrator Frank Muller's performance, which brings a dramatic intensity to Cities of the Plain and makes it an exceptional listening experience.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 25, 2011
    ISBN9781456124588
    Cities of the Plain
    Author

    Cormac McCarthy

    Cormac McCarthy was the author of many acclaimed novels, including Blood Meridian, Child of God and The Passenger. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men – the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. McCarthy died in 2023 in Santa Fe, NM at the age of 89.

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    Reviews for Cities of the Plain

    4.5/5

    37 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Whew. Read the trilogy over a span of three or four days. What a ride.

      Beautiful writing as always. This one has more philosophical discourse on life and death, much more so than the other two. A tragic story, but one which is cathartic and oddly dignifying.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      It's been a while since I've read good fiction, and it seems I've read some stinkers of late.But I went back to McCarthy and was welcomed back to his violent Texas border town world with open arms.John Grady and Billy Parham were each the focus in their respective narratives about them, The Crossing and All The Pretty Horses, and here's where they story ends, or what comes to be of these two cowboys.They're together on a ranch, working as hands, and John Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute, and this sets the back drop of what happens in the novel.It's rare to laugh out loud at a book, but I did this several times while reading the exchanges between the two main characters and the other ranch hands. There' s a love between them, for what they do and what they are, and you can see in the wording.As much as I laughed at the dialogue, these books are never an easy pill to swallow with Cormac, as he takes you to places you don't want to go, and people die who you don't want to die. But isn't that a way to show how powerful his writing is?In other stories, in most pop fiction, I'm not going to lose sleep over who is killed and who is let to live, but McCarthy connects you with his characters, with their flesh, weaknesses and flaws, and also with their more honorable sides. He makes you give a hang.John Grady Cole wanted to take a girl who was in trouble, and give her a good life, not even mentioning that he loved her, and that is such a good sentiment and a powerful gesture. Everyone was against it but her and him, and he goes for it anyway.This wasn't my favorite out of the Border trilogy. Most would pick All The Pretty Horses, but my heart places The Crossing above the rest.That being said, this is a great read, and I highly recommend picking it up if you are a fan of modern day Westerns (set in the 30's or 40's), or if you are a fan of McCarthy.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The heroes of the two previous novels in Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy return together in this one. John Grady Cole (from All the pretty horses) is still a young man whereas Billy Parham (The Crossing) is somewhat older--both working on a ranch near the New Mexico-Mexico border near the border cities of El Paso and Ciudad Jaurez. The story's main thread is developed around Cole's falling in love with a teenage Mexican prostitute--Magdalena and his attempting to bring her back over the border to marry her. Her Mexican brothel keepers/protectors have much different ideas about someone(thing) they consider their property. As in the previous two novels of this trilogy the novels denouement revolves around the clash between two different cultures living right on each others doorsteps. John recruits Billy Parham to act as a kind of go between between himself and the brothelkeepers (Eduardo and Tiburcio) but they're only interested in discouraging this liason. John then turns to an older Mexican he's met--a blind man but he cannot help him. He is in love though and cannot be stopped from the course he is on which only leads us to the books tragic and bloody climax. Though not quite as good as The Crossing--this is a simpler and shorter story and it plays to McCarthy's strengths as a writer. A little less concentrated in style than other works of his--the prose is clearer and more lucid. McCarthy is very economical in his dialogue and is one if not just about the best writer of action scenes in the United States today. Many writers would have turned this kind of material into a tearjerker but McCarthy maintains a very tight control over his story and the vision of where to go with it. The whole series is very enjoyable and well worth reading --at least IMO and I expect that within the next couple of years I may have read all his books. I look very much forward to his next.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      he concluding part in the Border Trilogy brings together the main character from each of the preceding novels, John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses, and Billy Parham from The Crossing. It is set after the war, John Grady is nineteen and Billy some ten years older, they are working together on a ranch at a time when the traditional life of the cowboy is threatened. This book is very much about the friendship between these two young men, a friendship closer perhaps than they realise, with Billy seeing himself very much as looking out for John Grady. The story centres around their life on the ranch and John Grady's ill-advised love for a young prostitute. We get to know also their co-workers on the ranch, and along the way there are little vignettes involving additional characters very much in the vein of the other books in the Trilogy. Cities of the Plain is every bit as good as the preceding books, beautifully written the sparse prose yet evokes the setting and the life of these men in a time of change. It is a most enjoyable read, there is humour, but is also heart-warming and at times heart-rending, deep in meaning; a worthy conclusion to a superb Trilogy.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beautiful, and heartbreaking.
    • 5/5
      It's 1952 and Mac's ranch has been purchased by the US Government. Jack Grady Cole and Billy Parham, two young cowboys who have grown up on the US-Mexican border (origin stories in [All the Pretty Horses] and [The Crossing]), face the disappearance of their way of life. McCarthy tells us what these characters do, what they say, but not what they think. The rhythm of their deeds and speech entwines with the cadence of McCarthy's language, irrevocably leading to what must come next: "Each event is revealed to us only at the surrender of every alternate course." The best description I can give you of this NY Times Notable Book of 1998 is to call it a Literary Shakesperean American Western Tragic Romance. And say that I rate it at 10 out of 10 stars.
    • 4/5
      Not as absorbing as The Crossing, which has a magical realism quality but probably too much Spanish for anyone that doesn't have a little hs Spanish. The Spanish here is sparse and very basic.It is a slow start, which must put off many readers new to McCarthy or the trilogy. (My advice: you can skim over the dog-hunting section.) However, once I got to the part where The Girl/ hooker with the heart of gold was walking toward her fate, I couldn't stop/had to keep stopping, if you get my drift. McCarthy's style is so understated, I didn't know he had it in him.Female characters are not McCarthy's strong suit, I gather after reading three of his novels. Yes, most depictions of Third World prostitutes by male novelists bear no semblance to reality but there are far more ridiculous ones than this one. At least in a dream-like thought of John Grady's we get an idea of how she reached this point. All too similar to the route so many in Thailand follow (although they're not going to end up servicing the high-end johns, not for long). You're never going to see that in Graham Greene's dusky wet dreams. That being said, every woman in a locked brothel/indentured situation has a buy-out price. This woman in particular does not have much of a shelf life. Eduardo is supposed to be "in love" with her? Then he wouldn't be renting her out. He wouldn't marry her; he'd keep her on the side. He has to be married already, FWIW.It's nitpicky but ... why was this rigamarole, getting a green card, etc. necessary? Why trust so many intermediaries? John Grady Cole has been seeing her, communicates the plan to her ...why doesn't he, possibly with Billy, just escort her personally across? It seems that the plan was to take her across the river at an unofficial crossing regardless. She could pass for Socorro's grandchild or whatever. Would a card be necessary for a wedding? I just don't buy it. Which of these Americans has any official id?Eduardo: "This is what had brought you here and will always bring you here. Your kind cannot bear that the world be ordinary. That it contains nothing save what stands before one. But the Mexican world is a world of adornment only and underneath it is very plain indeed ...And we will devour you, my friend. You and all your pale empire."