Volume One of the Border Trilogy 'A uniquely brilliant book ...told in language as subtly beautiful as its desert setting. One of the most important pieces of American writing of our time' Stephen Amidon, Sunday Times John Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet cruelly civilized; a place where dreams are paid for in blood. All the Pretty Horses is an acknowledged masterpiece and a grand love story: a novel about childhood passing, along with innocence and a vanished American age. Steeped in the wisdom that comes only from loss, it is a magnificent parable of responsibility, revenge and survival. 'A darkly shining work ...executed with consummate skill and much subtlety the effect is magnificent' John Banville, Observer 'An exhilarating, exceptional novel' Spectator 'In a single stride it takes McCarthy to the forefront of contemporary American fiction. All the Pretty Horses is indisputably a masterpiece' Financial Times