I want to commit crimes against the elderly

I have been reading books almost all of my life, from The Poky Little Puppy to Crime and Punishment and everything in between. In all of those thousands of books I had never read anything by Cormac McCarthy. I finished No Country For Old Men not an hour ago and I have never been more unsatisfied and unsettled by a novel than by this one.

I saw the trailer for the new Coen Brothers' adaptation and I thought, "whoa, this looks bad-ass." I couldn't wait to see the movie so I picked the short novel up at the library. I could not and would not recommend this book to anyone. As much as I love the Coens I have serious doubts about paying to see the film. If this book is not an aberration and the rest of his catalog bears any similarity, then Cormac McCarthy is the worst sort of hack. The sort who writes His Way, even though His Way sucks dick, and manufactures a work so full of holes and errors and yet still manages to pass it off to his editors and reviewers as high-minded literature that is immune to such things as comprehension and understanding.

The book was good, even great, for 236 pages. Bad grammar but good premise and good characters. Lots of bloody violence. And it then just stopped. The action, the chase, the suspense all just stopped. And what picked up for the next 60 odd pages was an old man visiting his uncle to tell him about a bad day he had in WWII and remiminiscing to himself about how America is nothing like it used to be and wishing he knew his father better. Huh!? Imagine the movie Jaws where the shark is towing the Orca out to sea and Hooper and Brody are struggling to untie the lines. The cleats pop off and then....we jump cut to see the two of them standing on the beach giving each other high-fives. It was like that.

For 236 pages I forgave McCarthy for numerous plot holes, comma splices, and anachronisms. I ignored McCarthy playing fast and loose with his timelines and confusing narrative structure. These things were forgivable because I had a great, simple, taut thriller in my hands. But he threw all that away on page 237 and hit me in the teeth with a lead pipe. The only thing I can think to compare it too is Grapes of Wrath where everything that came before simply deflates and you're left with an old geezer sucking on some chick's tit in a rainstorm. That is how I felt.

Save yourself the feeling of wanting to simultaneously throw up, jump out of your skin, and crack a beer bottle over someone's head and avoid this book and its shitty author.