The Crossing

Set along the US-Mexcio border of the 1940s, Cormac McCarthy's legendary Border Trilogy continues with The Crossing, a coming-of-age western set parallel to the events of All the Pretty Horses.

'McCarthy speaks to us in the thrilling, apocalyptic tones of an Old Testament prophet' – Sunday Telegraph

Sixteen-year-old Billy Parham and his younger brother Boyd are fascinated by an elusive wolf that has been marauding his family's property. Billy captures the animal but, rather than kill it, sets out impulsively for the mountains of Mexico to return it to from where it came.

On his return, he will find himself – and his world – irrevocably changed. His innocence lost at a cruel price, the desolate beauty of the border will beckon once again . . .

'The Crossing is like a river in full spate: beautiful and dangerous' – The Times

‘Nominally Westerns, these books are too entropic and philosophical to fit within the limits of the genre. They summon the ghosts of history, and haunt the gaps between justice and reality' – Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room

The Crossing is the second volume in the Border Trilogy. It is preceded by All the Pretty Horses and followed by Cities of the Plain.