Cities of the Plain (1998) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• John Grady Cole: The young cowboy, who was featured in the first of McCarthy's trilogy All the Pretty Horses
• Billy Parham: Another young cowboy, who was featured in the second of McCarthy's trilogy The Crossing
• Magdalena: A beautiful, epileptic teenage Mexican girl forced into a life of prostitution
• Eduardo: Pimp, knife fighter and criminal boss of the White Lake whorehouse

Quotes edit see section history

• “It does funny things to a man's head. What's that, sir? Bein shot at. Havin dirt thowed on you.”

  Mr. Johnson and John Grady Cole

• “The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of the claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transiencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.”

• “Regarding her own false arrogance in the pierglass as if it were proof against the old woman's entreaties, the old woman's promises. Standing like some maid in a fable spurning the offerings of the hag which do conceal within them unspoken covenants of corruption.”

• “But the old woman said that some have no choice. She said that for the poor any choice was a gift with two faces.”

• “I aint talkin about spooks. It's more like just the way things are. If only you knew it.”

  Mr. Johnson

• “And it had always seemed to me that somethin can live and die but that the kind of thing that they were was always there. I didnt know you could poison that. I aint heard a wolf howl in thirty odd years. I dont know where you'd go to hear one. There may not be any such a place.”

  Mr. Johnson

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in that maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life.

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• My daddy once told me that some of the most miserable people he ever knew were the ones that finally got what they’d always wanted.

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• This life of yours is not a picture of the world. It is the world itself and it is composed not of bone or dream or time but of worship. Nothing else can contain it. Nothing else be by it contained.

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• For each event is revealed to us only at the surrender of every alternate course.

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• Every man’s death is a standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love that man who stands for us. We are not waiting for his history to be written. He passed here long ago. That man who is all men and who stands in the dock for us until our own time come and we must stand for him. Do you love him, that man? Will you honor the path he has taken? Will you listen to his tale?

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• I only know that every act which has no heart will be found out in the end. Every gesture.

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• The world of our fathers resides within us. Ten thousand generations and more. A form without a history has no power to perpetuate itself. What has no past can have no future. At the core of our life is the history of which it is composed and in that core are no idioms but only the act of knowing and it is this we share in dreams and out. Before the first man spoke and after the last is silenced forever.

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• You go back home and everthing you wished was different is still the same and everthing you wished was the same is different.

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• A man was coming down the road driving a donkey piled high with firewood. In the distance the churchbells had begun. The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of the claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transiencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.

  Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers

• This story like all stories has its beginnings in a question. And those stories which speak to us with the greatest resonance have a way of turning upon the teller and erasing him and his motives from all memory. So the question of who is telling the story is very consiguiente. Every story is not about some question. Yes it is. Where all is known no narrative is possible.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Fort Collins, Colorado
• Platte River
• Ogallala
• Abilene, Texas
• Red River
• Cedar Springs

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Crossing.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Cormac McCarthy (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Frank Muller (Reader)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3563.C337 C58 1998
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( M ) › McCarthy, Cormac
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history