‘All The Pretty Horses’ (1993) by Cormac McCarthy is the first book of McCarthy’s acclaimed ‘Border Trilogy’ – comprised of this along with subsequent novels ‘The Crossing’ and ‘Cities of The Plain’.

Set on both sides of the Texas/Mexican borderlands – ‘Horses’ tells the story of one John Grady Cole and the journey(s) that he takes throughout the course of the novel. Poetic at times, elegiac, magisterial, compelling, engaging – at times moving, ‘Horses’ is very much an elemental story, of and about the land…and of course Horses, a central and key theme throughout.

‘Horses’ is very much and primarily a journey, a quest, a morality tale – an elegy to life, death, growing up, friendship, loyalty, love and loss, identity, country and belonging; ultimately it’s a love story working on various levels.

‘Horses’ is however by no means any kind of straightforward cowboy adventure/love story – it is so much more than that: Whilst not perhaps displaying the same darkly poetic dystopian grandeur of ‘The Road’ – ‘Horses’ is after all a very different book; it is nonetheless a powerful and moving story, epic in scale and ambition, ‘Horses’ very much delivers on all fronts.

Whilst working entirely well as a stand-alone novel – it will be very interesting to revisit ‘Horses’ in the light of the remaining two parts of McCarthy’s ‘Border Trilogy’. Thought provoking, powerful and memorable writing, ‘Horses’ is a novel not to be missed and unlikely to be forgotten.

I’m having difficulty writing a cogent review of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.

I plunged into this author’s work not knowing anything about his writing style. My first impression, after around 10 pages, was – “I have just read some of the WORLD’S longest sentences.” If I had to read them out loud, I would’ve run out of breath. My other observation was the lack of quotation marks, and he said, she said - which really gave me some trouble following who said what in a conversation. There was also a fair amount of untranslated Spanish – thank heavens I have a rudimentary understanding of that language, and my guess is many Americans have the same – but it still meant this reader missed out on the meaning of some things said. Yep, it was authentic, but it wasn’t enjoyable.

Having said that, this story of two young men travelling south from Texas into Mexico to earn some money (yes, it’s that simple) was interesting. I decided early on not to try and read this one quickly, it worked! I found myself immersed in some wonderful prose – I even re-read some passages to let them sink in.

The story itself was very interesting and I found myself looking forward to lying in bed with John Grady Cole and Rawlins each night, with Blevins joining us on occasions – and reading about their escapades. The horse wrangling, the dramas, the horse stolen, the uber-violent prison time, the love story – it was truly fascinating. A ripping yarn.

I found the part when a bunch of Mexicans wanted to buy young Blevins, as it seemed they were attracted to his naked legs – this was when he lost his clothes. This made me laugh, there were some funny bits.

Rawlins nodded. It’s sort of like old T-Bone. Watts when he worked for daddy they all fussed about him havin bad breath. He told them it was bettern no breath at all

But things started spinning out of control for me last night during my final sitting – the final 40 pages, the bit when Grady is riding with the Captain. I just couldn’t follow it; it became too confusing. Yes, this author does surprise – for example, you can read a passage and then realise – “oh that’s who he’s banging on about”. But this last bit, the part where I wanted some sort of ending – was lost on me. I didn’t like that.

It made me think, does this author write for himself or for the audience? He just struck me a bit like a top Jazz Trumpet Player who riffs for 30 minutes, improvising, mucking around with various tricks and slicks – almost inaccessible to the average punter. Is this author self-indulgent, or is he brilliant? In some ways, I can’t understand why somebody would create art that is confusing. Or is that the appeal to the educated reader? I think it might be – or to a certain section of educated readers.

Are McCarthy’s other books written like this?

3 stars

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
All the Pretty Horses ~~~ Cormac McCarthy



Believe it or not,  All the Pretty Horses is the first  Cormac McCarthy novel I have read. I wish I hadn't put reading  Cormac McCarthy off for so long. Reading this was like discovering an unknown  Ernest Hemingway title. This was a fantastic read.

All the Pretty Horses is a richly-imagined, modern-day, western, full of adventure, romance, and vibrant characters. After having read this, I am convinced McCarthy is one of the best writers America has produced the last 50 years.

The story is simple, but written with energy and thoughtful subtlety ~~ one critic described All the Pretty Horses as part n  bildungsroman, part horse opera, and part meditation on courage and loyalty.n The writing is sparse, the characters few ~~ all are all drawn with care and skill ~~ the friendship between Cole and Rawlins is humorous and heartfelt.


McCarthy’s nostalgic prose is sparse, romantic and mesmerizing; McCarthy paints a ruggedly beautiful picture of the badlands of Texas and northern Mexico.

I grew to love John Grady for his determination, his courage, his manliness and even his work ethic. I found Grady’s attitude refreshing and inspiring. Grady is the epitome of loyalty.

John Grady is the definition of honor, integrity, and kindness. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey with him.


After I'd finished  All the Pretty Horses, I felt I'd experienced something beautiful and fleeting. This is one of the greatest books I've read in years. Highly recommended.

'All The Pretty Horses' was a first time read for me.

I found the characters to be rather dull and uninteresting in this one.

As for the plot, it was rather plain and straightforward but i guess some stories are.

I guess i was expecting more from this one.

As always though I loved the authors amazing descriptions of the landscapes which surround the characters; i can almost feel the breeze of the plains.

I guess that's what makes Cormac McCarthy one of the finest contemporary writers in the world today.

I did like this book, i found it wonderfully atmospheric; it's just not the best one of his I've read.

I'll definitely need to watch the adaptation.

i boycotted this book for years because of the title... it sounded too girly, and i had no desire to read a book about horses, much less pretty ones. this was despite the fact that it had been first strongly recommended to me by an amazing high school english teacher who always had impeccable tastes in literature. man did i have no idea what i was missing due to my snobbish snubbery. luckily my dear friends janae and kristine mailed me a copy while i was living in Poland, in a giant birthday box full of top-notch used books, and i finally decided to give it a chance one cold february day when i was home sick and delirious with a 104 degree fever in the middle of the bleak polish winter. it sounds cliche but i truly think i didnt put it down from the moment i picked it up. page one pretty much tore down all my pre-conceptions about what a book could be like whose title contained the word "pretty."

Cormac McCarthy's writing is very Man-ly, with a capital M - this aint no pretty girl book. But at the same time as being incredibly Man-ly, it is unbelievably lyrical and beautiful. There were sentences that literally pained me with their beauty. The situations he describes are dark, bleak, often hopeless, yet he's able to extract gorgeousness from them and often completely knocks you down with waves of emotion. One of his greatest strengths is his ability to capture very real, raw dialogue, dialogue that never for a moment sounds like a movie script, but rather perfectly captures the minimalist grunting of men of few words. And like a fine japanese filmmaker, he captures the pauses amid the dialogue just as well. His writing reminds me most of Willam Faulkner - he'll intersperse breathless run-on sentences that take up an entire page with chapters containing a single line, and although his style mostly isnt much like Hemingway's, he does have a similar way of throwing in spanish sentences without translation - so those who dont speak the language must just assume the meaning from the context, and those who do can float almost effortlessly between the spanish and english sentences without second thought. it's one of those books that makes you want to get inside the author's head (i had a similar feeling when i read the Sound and the Fury) - who is this man? where do his thoughts come from? is this how he thinks all the time? are all this thoughts this perfectly worded and beautiful? does he have a keen understanding of the world and its minute details that the rest of us dont?
My last raving comment is that i was so affected by this book, the first in a trilogy, that i immediately set out by train to the nearest larger town to find the second installment in an english-language bookstore, and immediately devoured it once i found it, (finding it even bleaker and more depressing, if possible, yet also even more beautiful and enjoyable to read than the first), and then had someone in the States send me the third and final volume, but i was so taken by the first two, that i couldnt read the third book, being unable to accept the idea of the trilogy being over. never mind the fact that mccarthy has dozens of other books i could then enjoy - it seemed important that i save the last installment, for such a moment when i really needed to read something amazing. it gave me comfort to know that another book like these first two was out there waiting for me in the world, unread. Eight years have passed and i still havent read it. my great pleasure at this point is that once i do decide to finally read it, it's been long enough since i read the first two that really i should read them again to refresh my memory - so i'm excited to experience them all over again. but its possible i'll just never read the third, despite my intense curiosity (since in it the paths of the lead characters of the first and second finally cross). but i just like knowing it's out there, still waiting to be read.

4,5 *

Magnificent.

4.5 stars
*** I have a YouTube channel now! Check it out here. ***

Edit: this book is incredible.. lifting it up to 4.5
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What a beautiful book.
I guess I don't hate Westerns anymore.

This was a beautiful melancholy western from McCarthy. Less of a punch than his epic Blood Meridien, nonetheless, this is an engaging story with fantastic Hemmingway style grandeur. Looking forward to the other two volumes of the trilogy.
If you have not seen the movie with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz released in 2000, it is a worthy on-screen representation of this beautiful novel. Faithful to the text and including the key dialogs, it reproduces the ambiance that McCarthy creates and is a true joy to watch (and I say this as someone who does not really like Matt Damon that much but here he really does a great job as a cowboy.)
I'd say that both the book and its interpretation on the silver screen were great.

Cormac McCarthy holds a unique position in the literary community: Practically untouchable. He has both the guts and the gumption to wade into drowning pools that other authors can't dip a toe in. McCarthy is well known for his acute sense of southern darkness, often writing about the depths of depravity people have sunk to, putting a magnifying glass to the appalling violence humans engage in on the fringes of civilization. He does so with a wisdom and unflinching eye rarely found in literature.

'All The Pretty Horses' shows a slightly softer side of Cormac. At it's core, this is a love story. John Grady Cole comes from a long line of ranchers facing extinction in the late 1940s. At sixteen he leaves Texas and rides south with his best friend to Mexico, where his skills with taming and training horses can be put to good use on a rich man's ranch. They meet and befriend a third boy on the way who proves troublesome for the trio. And once settled south of the border, John Grady falls in love with the ranch owner's daughter which leads to a whole new set of problems.

Don't let "love story" fool you though, and don't get too comfortable. The story still has Cormac's signature bleakness and magnificence of life in the open country. Set in the middle of the last century, life takes on a toughness and simplicity rarely seen today. There is violence and despair, the harsh realities of innocence coming into contact with a world infected by moral corruption. It was a time where boys became men at a far younger age, where people were forced grow up and face hardships early in their lives. It was a time where everything from traveling, encountering strangers, and sometimes merely existing tempted a much higher mortality rate.

'All The Pretty Horses' is yet another short brilliant novel from the man whose ability to immerse us in the horrors and hope of the human condition is legendary; one of the undisputed masters of the written word.

A rare thing happened to me while I read this novel: I barely gave it a thought. It didn't exist for me outside of the time I was reading it. Which means I don't have a lot to say about it. McCarthy is a good storyteller. He goes from A to B to C. He is good at telling a relatively simple story of straightforward emotions on a grand Homeric scale. Perhaps once or twice I registered a dislike of the Biblical registers of his highly stylised prose in the poetic passages. And I thought for a moment how important loyalty is to him as a quality, the last bastion of defence against the tribulations of a hostile fate. There was a wise old aunt I liked. But it wasn't a novel that engaged me on a deep level.

I read this one a while ago and some of the scenes are still with me. And because of the continual flashes in remembrances I have to put this book into my top five of all time. The prose is lyrical, the characters three dimensional. The scene that comes back to me the most is the one where the two main characters are befriended by a kid down in Mexico All three are detained by the Mexican police and the horse the kid is riding is one he'd stolen. The Mexican police take him off and shoot him while the two friends wait, helpless to stop it. A good book is about conflict and conflict is all about emotions. For me that is one of the most emotional scenes I have ever read. This is a story of comradery, romance, a story of loyalty and loss. This book is one of a trilogy. I didn't like the others as much as I enjoyed this one. I think I just talked myself into reading this one again.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.