Originally published in 1968, Outer Dark is Cormac McCarthy's second novel. Set in a remote part of the Appalachian Mountains around the turn of the 20th century, the story begins with a woman giving birth to her brother's child. The man takes the baby and abandons it in the woods, telling his sister that it died of natural causes in the night. Realizing that her brother has lied, the woman begins a long, circuitous journey through the mountains to find her child. Over the coming months, brother and sister travel separately through a rugged section of Appalachia peopled with striking, vibrant characters and terrorized by a nameless trio of wandering vagabonds. Outer Dark has the bleak humor and sudden violence of a film like Fargo, and McCarthy's prose is at its phantasmagorical best. The book is available in paperback from Vintage (9780679728733, $15). --Alex Mutter
