 First edition | |
| Author | Cormac McCarthy |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Border Trilogy |
| Genre | Western |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | May 12, 1998 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 304 pp |
| ISBN | 0-679-42390-7 |
| OCLC | 38550262 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3563.C337 C58 1998 |
| Preceded by | The Crossing |
Cities of the Plain is the final volume of American novelist Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", published in 1998. The title is a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:29).
The story opens in 1952. John Grady Cole (the protagonist of All the Pretty Horses ) and Billy Parham (the protagonist of The Crossing ) work together on a cattle ranch south of Alamogordo, New Mexico, not far from the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. The ranch's owners are kind, but face an uncertain future in a dying industry. Recently devastated by drought, cattle ranches around El Paso are struggling and may be claimed by the Department of Defense, through eminent domain, to become military areas. Though the cowboys barely make a living, John Grady and Billy love life on the open range, and John Grady – as detailed in All the Pretty Horses – is a master at training horses. Billy is an excellent tracker.
During a visit to a brothel in Juárez, John Grady falls in love with a young, epileptic prostitute, Magdalena. The couple plans to marry and live in the U.S., and John Grady renovates an abandoned cabin, turning it into a home. But Magdalena's brothel is run by Eduardo, a formidable adversary also in love with the young girl. Billy attempts to dissuade John Grady but feels obligated to help the couple.
Eduardo's subordinate Tiburcio murders Magdalena by cutting her throat, after she steals away from the brothel to meet John Grady at a crossing of the Rio Grande and leave Mexico. After John Grady finds her body in the morgue, he faces Eduardo in a knife fight. Though John Grady kills Eduardo, he is mortally wounded in the fight. He survives long enough to contact Billy, who hurries to comfort John Grady before his death.
After John Grady's death, a short epilogue—not unlike the conclusion of Blood Meridian (1985)—details, in a few pages, the next several decades of Billy's life. After drifting across the Southwest for many years, working ranches and living in hotels, Billy, homeless, takes shelter beneath a highway underpass. There, he meets a mysterious man who tells him about a convoluted dream. Though the man denies it, Billy suspects he is Death. However, Billy survives the meeting with the man and finds shelter and a new life with a family who takes him in.
Cities of the Plain was favorably reviewed in The New York Times, though the reviewer criticized McCarthy's violent prose and arcane language, observing: "One begins to miss the simple evocation of cowboy life that is so stirring in the earlier novels." [1]
A film adaptation, directed by Andrew Dominik and starring James Franco, has been stated to be in development, but as of 2018 these plans appear to have fallen through. [2] [3]
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of special significance and legend. A subtype, called a wrangler, specifically tends the horses used to work cattle. In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or participate in rodeos. Cowgirls, first defined as such in the late 19th century, had a less-well documented historical role, but in the modern world work at identical tasks and have obtained considerable respect for their achievements. Cattle handlers in many other parts of the world, particularly South America and Australia, perform work similar to the cowboy.
The vaquero is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became the foundation for the North American cowboy. The vaqueros of the Americas were the horsemen and cattle herders of New Spain, who first came to California with the Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino in 1687, and later with expeditions in 1769 and the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition in 1774. They were the first cowboys in the region.
Lonesome Dove is a 1985 Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series, but the third installment in the series chronologically.
Cormac McCarthy is an American writer who has written ten novels, two plays, five screenplays and two short stories, spanning the Western and post-apocalyptic genres. He is well known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary American writers.
Charles Goodnight, also known as Charlie Goodnight, was an American rancher in the American West, perhaps the best known rancher in Texas. He is sometimes known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle." Essayist and historian J. Frank Dobie said that Goodnight "approached greatness more nearly than any other cowman of history." In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is a 1985 epic novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, classified under the Western, or sometimes the anti-Western, genre. McCarthy's fifth book, it was published by Random House.
All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism, contrasting with the bleakness of Blood Meridian, McCarthy's earlier work, brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".
The Crossing (ISBN 0-394-57475-3) is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf. The story is the second installment of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".
Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain was an American attorney who served in the Texas Senate and the New Mexico House of Representatives. Following a purge of corruption among cattle rustlers that Fountain investigated and prosecuted, he and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near White Sands, New Mexico Territory. Their bloodstained wagon and other evidence of an ambush were recovered, but the bodies were never found. Suspicion centered on two rival landowners, Oliver M. Lee and Albert Bacon Fall. Lee and two employees were tried for the murder of Henry Fountain, but acquitted after a defense by Fall. No charges were ever filed for the death of Albert Fountain.
Dallas Stoudenmire was an American Old West gunfighter and lawman who gained fame for a brief gunfight that was later dubbed the "Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight." Stoudenmire had a deadly reputation in his day and was involved in several gunfights.
Newman Haynes Clanton, also known as "Old Man" Clanton, was a cattle rancher and father of four sons, one of whom was killed during the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Two of his sons were involved in multiple conflicts in Cochise County, Arizona Territory including stagecoach robbery and cattle rustling. His son Ike Clanton was identified by one witness as a participant in the murder of Morgan Earp. Billy Clanton and Ike were both present at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in which Billy was killed. "Old Man" Clanton was reportedly involved with stealing cattle from Mexican ranchers and re-selling them in the United States. Records indicate he participated in the Skeleton Canyon Massacre of Mexican smugglers. In retaliation, Mexican Rurales are reported to have ambushed and killed him and a crew of Cowboys in the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre.
The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight was a famous gun fight that occurred on April 14, 1881, on El Paso Street, in El Paso, Texas. Witnesses generally agreed that the incident lasted no more than five seconds after the first gunshot, though a few would insist it was at least ten seconds. Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire accounted for three of the four fatalities with his twin .44 caliber Smith & Wesson revolvers.
All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American Western film produced and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz. It premiered on December 25, 2000 to mostly negative reviews. It grossed $18 million worldwide on a $57 million budget.
Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in Louisiana and points east. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.
Josiah Gordon "Doc" Scurlock was an American Old West figure, cowboy, and gunfighter. A founding member of the Regulators during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, Scurlock rode alongside such men as Billy the Kid.
William Harrison Clanton was an outlaw Cowboy in Cochise County, Arizona Territory. He, along with his father Newman Clanton and brother Ike Clanton, worked a ranch near the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory and stole livestock from Mexico and later U.S. ranchers.
The Border Trilogy is a series of novels by the American author Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), and Cities of the Plain (1998).
Cattle Stampede is a 1943 American Producers Releasing Corporation Western film of the "Billy the Kid" series directed by Sam Newfield.
A ranch is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often applied to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas. People who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a method used to raise less common livestock such as horses, elk, American bison or even ostrich, emu, and alpaca.
Black cowboys in the American West accounted for up to an estimated 25 percent of workers in the range-cattle industry from the 1860s to 1880s, estimated to be at least 5000 workers according the latest research. Typically former slaves or born into the families of former slaves, many black men had skills in cattle handling and headed West at the end of the Civil War. Though the industry generally treated black men equally to white men in terms of pay and responsibilities, discrimination persisted, though to a lesser extent than in other industries of the time.
