Historical Fiction · EpicIn 1949, a sixteen-year-old Texas cowboy rides south into Mexico with his best friend
All the Pretty Horses
After the family ranch is sold, a sixteen-year-old cowboy rides to Mexico with a friend
John Grady Cole is sixteen and was raised largely by a Mexican family on his grandfather's ranch near San Angelo, Texas. When his grandfather dies, he learns the ranch will be sold. Rather than move into town, he leaves for Mexico with his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to find work as a cowboy. Near the border they meet Jimmy Blevins, a young runaway with a fine horse, and in Coahuila Grady's skill with horses earns him a senior place at a ranch.
More about this book
Who
John Grady Cole, his friend Lacey Rawlins, a young runaway named Jimmy Blevins, and Alejandra, the daughter of a ranch owner.
World
Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, beginning in 1949.
What makes it different
It is the first book of McCarthy's Border Trilogy and followed Blood Meridian.
Feel
Epic and elegiac. It won the 1992 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and became a 2000 film with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- All the Pretty HorsesWikipedia