The Border Trilogy

Journey into the heart of the American frontier in Cormac McCarthy's award-winning The Border Trilogy, a sweeping tale of loyalty, love, and the inescapable conditions of life.

With an introduction from Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room, this edition collects all three novels in the trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain.

Set in the mid-20th century, the trilogy follows two young cowboys as they leave their childhoods behind and venture across the U.S.-Mexico border. John Grady Cole searches for his future to the south, finding adventure and barbarism in the vanishing world of the Old West. Billy Parham, accompanied by a lone, pregnant wolf, is drawn to the mountains of Mexico after sparing her life.

When the two men's paths converge in the final volume, a perilous chain of events unfolds, bringing the story to its savage and inevitable conclusion. Filled with sorrow and humour, The Border Trilogy is a powerful saga of friendship and coming of age in a world where violence and bloodshed are a part of life.

Praise for Cormac McCarthy:

'McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute' – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren

'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series

'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain